St. Paul, Minn. (March 27, 1995) -- 3M and Pertec Memories, Inc., Scotts Valley, Calif., have announced that Pertec will manufacture and market minicartridge tape drives based on 3M's new Travan™ technology.

The Travan platform will enable manufacturers to develop new drive and minicartridge products that will more than double existing minicartridge capacity.

The Travan platform features a unique drive/minicartridge interface included in a patent application filed by 3M.

"We're confident that Travan technology will deliver many benefits to both the desktop and network environments," said Alain Bouttier, chairman and chief executive officer, Pertec Memories, Inc., Scotts Valley. "The leap in capacity, backward compatibility and widespread industry commitment assures that the Travan platform will be a win for users.

"Travan technology will become a cornerstone of Pertec's strategy," Bouttier said. "It will allow Pertec and our subsidiaries to provide the marketplace with a line of tape drive products that meet customers' needs for today and the foreseeable future. This technology will also enable us to capitalize on our 30 years of experience and become a major player in the tape drive industry."

"Pertec's decision is another step in the right direction for Travan technology," said Michael J. Stevens, director of business development, 3M Data Storage Tape Technology Division. "Pertec's support sends a strong message to users -- particularly in Europe -- that Travan technology represents the future direction of tape."

Several leading companies -- including 3M, Hewlett-Packard's Colorado Memory Systems Division, Conner Peripherals, Iomega, Rexon and Sony -- have announced plans to manufacture products based on Travan technology.

The companies developing drives based on the Travan platform are working with the Quarter-Inch Cartridge (QIC) organization to develop a migration path that incorporates the Travan cartridge and the resulting drive recording formats.

Optimized Minicartridge Platform
The initial points along the Travan migration path will include a modified version of QIC-80, QIC-3010 and QIC-3020 recording formats that accept the new cartridge.

The native (uncompressed) storage capacity of the new Travan modified QIC-80 drive/cartridge is expected to be 400 MB (current minicartridge capacity is 125 MB). Native storage capacity of the new modified QIC-3010 drive/cartridge is expected to be 800 MB (now 340 MB), while the capacity of the new modified QIC-3020 drive/cartridge is expected to 1.6 GB (now 670 MB). A minicartridge with a native capacity of 4 GB is also planned for introduction in 1995.

The Travan platform will optimize available space in a 3.5-inch-drive form factor housing. Mechanical changes will enable the drive to accept current QIC minicartridges, QIC-Wide and Travan cartridges. The new cartridge will contain 750 feet of .315-inch media. The initial Travan cartridge offerings will require no changes in media formulation, and will use existing drive electronics and available head technology.

"QIC's role for 12 years has been to define tape capacity and performance advances to meet users' ever-evolving needs, while safeguarding their need for compatibility with previously-recorded cartridges," said Raymond C. Freeman, Jr., President, Freeman Associates, Inc., QIC Facilitator, Santa Barbara, Calif. "The Travan minicartridge provides the next leap forward for 3.5-inch QIC drives, doubling capacities while preserving backward compatibility."

According to 3M's Stevens, the Travan platform allows minicartridge technology to keep pace with rapidly increasing hard-disk capacities, while enabling the industry to better support emerging software applications like Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) on the desktop and Windows95 applications.

Travan technology will also satisfy the critical need for users to capitalize on their investments in QIC technology through backward-read compatibility, he added.

3M, Pertec and the other companies supporting Travan technology plan to continue working on future development of the Travan drive and recording formats to assure further expansion of the market for tape-based applications.

Each capacity point on the Travan technology migration path is expected to represent at least a two-fold capacity increase above all previous capacity points. Backward compatibility will also be assured at each convergence point, 3M's Stevens said.

Pertec Memories is the oldest tape drive manufacturer, with 30 years of experience. The U.S. market for Travan products will be served by Pertec Memories, Inc., while the European market will be served by DDF Pertec of France.

Data cartridge technology, invented and patented by 3M, is the world's most popular desktop tape backup technology and boasts an installed base of more than 11 million drives, with three million drives shipped in 1994 alone.

3M is the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of branded minicartridges.

Travan is a trademark of 3M.
QIC-Wide is a trademark of Sony.
Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

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