Product Reviews

As hard drives get bigger, our work is expanding to fill the available space. This makes backing up work increasingly more difficult, so Imation has launched a new tape backup drive to solve this problem. The Imation Travan FireWire offers up to 20Gb of storage space for each tape cartridge, connects through FireWire and takes up very little desk space.

Imation's Travan tape format is fairly mature, but for many years the DAT format was seen as the backup king. However, times have changed and now regular DAT capacities look small, while the larger DLT variant still cost an arm and a leg.

The new Travan format's 20Gb capacity is based on a 2:1 compression ratio. The tapes will hold up to 10Gb if all compression is turned off, but for most file types, you can expect to make a space saving of 2:1 and squeeze up to 20Gb on to a single tape. This isn't possible with files that use highly compressed data, such as MP3 tracks or JPEGs, which can't be squeezed much.

The Travan format is markedly simpler than most tape technologies. Instead of the tape being drawn into the drive and wrapped around spinning drums, it acts more like an audio tape. Inserting a cartridge presses the tape against the read and write heads,

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so there's less chance of a tangled-tape disaster.

The cartridge sticks part-way out of the tape drive slot when in use, but this is perfectly safe as long as nobody tries pulling it out. In fact, this won't damage the tape unless it's in use when it's removed, and the lack of an eject button means just pulling the cartridge out is the correct method of operation. Nevertheless, it looks a little strange compared with most other removable storage technologies.

What's the store?

The data rate the Travan FireWire drive achieved in our tests was an average of 37Mb/sec for copying data, and between 40Mb/sec and 60Mb/sec for data comparison. This isn't staggeringly fast compared with hardware such as the Ecrix VXA-1 drive or Sony's AIT mechanisms, but it's certainly less costly. The drive is priced at £425, which may seem steep compared with desktop hard drive costs, but is fairly cheap by tape backup drive standards. More importantly, a 20Gb tape costs around £22, which is cheap enough to use a system of rotating backups.

Good buy

The drive is powered by an external adaptor, and has two FireWire ports and a slot at the back for a Kensington lock. It comes with the most recent version of Retrospect 4, which is essential for connection to the FireWire mechanism and accessing tapes. However, this version isn't Mac OS X-compatible, so you'll have to buy an upgrade version to Retrospect 5.0 from Dantz. Until manufacturers start bundling Retrospect 5.0 with hardware, this will be a common problem with tape backup devices.

The Travan FireWire isn't the only tape backup drive around, and there are units with larger capacity and greater speed. However, it's definitely more affordable than most modern backup solutions, and should help safeguard your important work.