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Until the advent of tape drives built around the new Enhanced IDE interface, PC and workstation manufacturers that wanted tape backup for high-capacity hard-disk drives had two options: They could install slow, low-capacity, floppy-interface quarter-inch-cartridge (QIC) drives to keep overall system costs low, or they could opt for high-cost, high-performance digital audio tape (DAT) drives. Neither solution effectively addressed the user's need for convenient data protection or the manufacturer's goal of an economical integrated solution.
The emergence of Enhanced IDE is making it far simpler to add tape drives. Storage-system designers can work with the same interface controller they use for hard drives, gaining considerable performance without paying a premium.
The Enhanced IDE interface, now in common use on CD-ROM drives, goes beyond incorporation of high-speed host-transfer capabilities, support of high-capacity disk drives and multiple peripheral connectivity; the interface now includes support for tape drives, via the AT Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) specification. Adopted by the QIC Committee (QIC-157), the interface has received broad...