StorageTek to License Overland's VR2
StorageTek has signed a definitive agreement to license Overland's patented Variable Rate Randomizer (VR2) technology. This agreement consummates the Letter of Intent which was announced in April. Overland's VR2 technology will be integrated broadly into future offerings of StorageTek's 9840 tape drive technology, both access-centric and capacity-centric versions.
StorageTek's 9840 is a fast access and restore tape drive. It is the leader in Fibre Channel applications, including rapidly growing Storage Area Networks (SANs). Overland's VR2 substantially increases the capacity and throughput of linear tape formats. The first successful implementation of Partial Maximum Likelihood (PRML) channel encoding technology on linear tape drive platforms, VR2 can increase native capacity and native data transfer rate performance of existing linear tape technologies by as much as 50 to 100 percent without requiring any changes in tape path design, recording heads or media. This is accomplished by achieving rate efficiency of greater than 99 percent.
Overland's VR2 technology licensees also include Imation, Seagate and Tandberg Data. For more information, visit www.storagetek.com.