The 3490E Model FC0 is designed to allow rack-mounting of the IBM 3490E Model F11 Magnetic Tape Drives. From one to four Model F11 Tape Drives can be mounted in the FC0 rack. Optional features provide connections for ES/3090 and S/390 systems. Attachment to ES/3090, ES/9000, or S/390 systems can be made with either ESCON or parallel channels. Attachment to AS/400 systems is by the AS/400 Feature 6501, Magnetic Media Subsystem Controller Feature. Attachment to RS/6000 and other open systems is by a SCSI differential adapter.

Model Highlights 3490-FC0

• Significant reduction in power and cooling requirements
• Provides 32 EIA units for rack mounting
• Optional control unit features provide ESCON or parallel channel attachment

The 3490E Model FC0 Rack and control unit features, along with the previously announced 3490E Model F11 tape drive provide the ability to configure a high performance tape subsystem. The Model FC0 Rack, when ordered with the proper control unit features, provides attachment to S/390, RS/6000, SP2, and AS/400 systems. Attachments provided are ESCON, parallel channel, and SCSI. The building blocks of the tape subsystem are the 3490E Model FC0 Rack, Model FC0 feature codes, and the 3490E Model F11 Tape Drives.

The 3490E Model F11 drives can be installed in the 3490E Model FC0 rack in single drive increments, providing greater configuration flexibility than was previously available with the 3490E A and B models. The 3490E Model F11 drives are native SCSI drives and if attached to a SCSI host do not require any additional control unit features.

The 3490E Model FC0 Rack supports up to four 3490E Model F11 Tape Drives, one control unit feature 3000, and a maximum of two channel adapter features. The optional channel adapter features can be ESCON or parallel channel in any combination. The 3490E Model FC0 control unit feature 3000 can support attachment of up to eight 3490E Model F1 Tape drives. For an eight-drive configuration, the 3490E Model FC0 rack is used as an expansion frame. This is accomplished by ordering a Model FC0 rack without any control unit features.

The 3490E Model FC0 Rack, with control unit feature codes and 3490E Model F11 Tape drives, can provide significant improvements in tape subsystem throughput. The improved throughput is gained by the drives residing on a shared 20 MB/second bandwidth SCSI bus. Actual throughput is a function of system processors, data block size, and the software applications used.

The 3490E Model F11 support Enhanced Capacity cartridges and 36-track recording to provide the highest data capacity per cartridge of the 3480- and 3490-format cartridges. Using IDRC compression capability, capacity can be up to 2.4 GB per subsystem, nearly three times higher than the uncompressed capacity of 3480-and 3490-format cartridges. The increased cartridge capacity reduces the investment needed in cartridges and saves on storage costs.

The long cartridge life of the Enhanced Capacity Cartridge System Tape and the high quality of the 3490E "F" models, make them an excellent choice to support critical data. The 3490E Model F11 drive comes standard with a 10-cartridge autoloader. The autoloader also holds a cleaning cartridges that provides on-demand cleaning.