LOW COST, HIGH PERFORMANCE TAPE DRIVE

摘要

The device comprises a tape drive (522), a disc drive (516) and an interface communicably coupled to the tape drive and to the disk drive for allowing the tape drive to exchange data with a host computer. The disk drive stores data received from a host during time periods when a tape is being retrieved and loaded onto the tape drive such that the host computer may begin sending data to the tape drive prior to the tape being mounted on the tape drive. Once the tape is mounted, the data received from the host computer is written directly to the tape with space reserved on the tape for writing the initial data received from the host computer that is stored on the disk drive. Once the tape drive has finished writing all but the initial data to the tape, the tape is repositioned and the initial data is written to the tape from the disk drive onto the reserved portion of the tape.