The type of Personal Computer (PC) data storage device which came from the DAT technical knowledge is named as DDS (Digital Data storage) tape. This DAT technology was introduced by HP and Sony in the late 1980's.



DDS tape is 3.8mm wide and is used quite successfully all over the world. The process of helical scanning has been adopted by DDS right from the starting, which was earlier used by VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) for a very long period of time. The Limits of DDS tape ends at two thousand passes/one hundred full backups. It should be cleaned regularly for its maintenance and long life time. The minimum life of Digital Data Storage tape is one decade. The Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT), VXA, Travan and Linear Tape Open (LTO) formats compete with the DDS technology.

The current DDS tapes have high capacity. DDS3 tapes hold 12gb native and 24 gb compressed data. DDS4 tapes hold 20gb native and 40gb compressed data. DDS5 tapes store 36/72 gigabyte of data. DDS6 or DAT-160 holds up to 160gb of data.

The great advantage of DDS tape is that this form of tape can be used both as Digital Audio Tape (DAT) and Digital Data Storage (DDS) tapes. But since the DDS tape is not able to pick the audio on Digital Audio tapes, DDS is unable to play and operate these tapes.

The 4mm tape is used by Digital Data Storage (DDS) tape. It includes 2 heads to read and 2 heads to write. The two heads which specifically read are to check the data recording. If the errors occur then the 2 heads which are specifically the write heads, encounter the errors and write it again correctly. While the data is being stored by the tape, the software scans the directories from the start of the DDS tape, and then guides the DDS tape to the location where the file is to be written on hard drive.

The Digital Data Storage tape requires an operating system to work on the files that have already been stored in the DDS format. DDS tape cannot manage, retrieve or change the files inside the tape without specific software.

The design of DDS tape is basically adapted from parallel hard drive interface. This is because the parallel hard drive interface has been found to be one of the most useful and reliable interface for the storage and backing up of data over the years.

The Digital Data storage (DDS) format offers cost-effective, reliable and efficient data tape cartridge for its personal and commercial users at affordable prices.

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