The most popular tape technology ever

Multiple generations of Digital Audio Tape (DAT) drives have been shipping since 1989. In fact, with over 18 million drives and close to 500 million pieces of media shipped, DAT technology is the most popular tape drive technology ever. DAT still dominates the low end of the tape drive market with a 77% market share in 2007, according to IDC Reports.

The popularity of DAT technology can be attributed to its continued ability to meet the needs of small and medium sized business customers better than any other technology available. And because DAT is an open standard it is developed and manufactured by a number of vendors.

As an open standard DAT provides many benefits to customers:
 Investment protection – robust future roadmap, assured interchange
     and compatibility
 Assurance of supply – multiple manufacturers of drives and media
 Backward compatibility with previous generations of DAT drive assured
 Faster development times due to competition between manufacturers
 Lower cost of drive and media due to economies of scale

DAT technology also provides many other useful benefits to customers:
 Proven reliability
 Capacity matched to customer needs/disk capacities
 Ease of integration and minimal storage space
 Affordability