Ditto drive
Encyclopedia
Magnetic tape data storage
Magnetic tape data storage uses digital recording on to magnetic tape to store digital information. Modern magnetic tape is most commonly packaged in cartridges and cassettes. The device that performs actual writing or reading of data is a tape drive...
system released by Iomega
Iomega
Iomega is an American producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks. On April 8, 2008, EMC Corporation announced its plans to acquire Iomega for a consideration of US $213M...
during the 1990s. It was marketed as a backup device for personal computers.
They were released in several capacities ranging from the original Ditto 250 drive (250MB compressed capacity per cartridge) to the DittoMAX drive, a compatible format with compressed capacities up to 10GB per cartridge. This was accomplished by increasing the physical size of the cartridge (making it longer). Some versions of the drive were also able to read Travan
Travan
Travan is an 8 mm magnetic tape cartridge design developed by the 3M company, used for the storage of data in computer backups and mass storage. Over time, subsequent versions of Travan cartridges and drives have been developed that provide greater data capacity, while retaining the standard 8 mm...
-type tapes.
Technical aspects
Ditto internal drives were connected through the floppy drive channel and used MFMModified Frequency Modulation
Modified Frequency Modulation, commonly MFM, is a line coding scheme used to encode the actual data-bits on most floppy disk formats, hardware examples include Amiga, most CP/M machines as well as IBM PC compatibles. Early hard disk drives also used this coding.MFM is a modification to the original...
encoding to store data (the same method as on older floppy drives). An ISA
Industry Standard Architecture
Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
accelerator card called the Ditto Dash, providing higher speed than a stock floppy controller, was also available.
Ditto external drives were connected to the parallel port
Parallel port
A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers for connecting various peripherals. In computing, a parallel port is a parallel communication physical interface. It is also known as a printer port or Centronics port...
and offered a print-through port which allowed a printer to operate while daisy-chain
Daisy chain (information technology)
Daisy chain is a term used variously in information technology. Its meaning differs according to technology domain, although each preserves the traditional meaning of connecting like items to each other in a series or chain.- Computer software :...
ed to the Ditto drive. This is a feature also commonly found on an Iomega ZIP drive. Usage of the parallel port allowed for transfer speeds (in EPP mode) of a maximum 1 MB/s.
Discontinuation
In 1999, Iomega sold the Ditto brand and technology to TecmarTecmar
Tecmar was an American manufacturer of PC enhancement products based in Solon, OH. The company was founded in 1974 and their first products were data acquisition boards for the first generation of microcomputers. Popular products included the Scientific Solutions LabMaster series of boards for...
and exited the tape drive business.
The Ditto series has been discontinued. The need for higher capacities has made the Ditto series obsolete. The slow bandwidth of the Ditto also limited its usefulness compared to the Iomega REV
Iomega REV
REV was a removable hard disk storage system from Iomega.The small removable cartridges store 35, 70, or 120 gigabytes and were based on hard-drive technology. Like a standard hard drive, the REV system used a flying head to read and write data to a spinning platter...
or the older (and discontinued) Iomega Jaz
Jaz drive
The Jaz drive was a removable disk storage system, introduced by the Iomega company in 1995. The system has since been discontinued.The Jaz disks were originally released with a 1 GB capacity in a 3½-inch form factor, which was a significant increase over Iomega's most popular product at the time,...
.
Compatibility between tapes and drives
| QIC | Travan Travan Travan is an 8 mm magnetic tape cartridge design developed by the 3M company, used for the storage of data in computer backups and mass storage. Over time, subsequent versions of Travan cartridges and drives have been developed that provide greater data capacity, while retaining the standard 8 mm... |
Iomega Ditto | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2080 | 2120 | 2120XL | QW5122 | 3000 | 3000XL | 3010XL | 3010XLF | 3020 | 3020XL | 3020XLF | TR-1 | TR-2 | TR-3 | 2GB | Max 3GB | 3.7GB | Max 5GB | Max 7GB | Max 10GB | |
| Tape 250 | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W | |||||||||||||||||
| Tape 420 | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | ||||||||||||||||
| Ditto 800 | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | |||||||||||||||
| Ditto 510 | R | R | R/W/F | R/W/F | ||||||||||||||||
| Ditto 700 | R | R | R/W/F | R/W/F | ||||||||||||||||
| Ditto 850 | R | R | R | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | ||||||||||||||
| Ditto 1700 | R | R | R | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | R/W/F | |||||||||||
| Ditto 3200 | R | R | R | R | R | R | ? | R/W/F | R/W/F | R | R | R/W/F | ||||||||
| Ditto 2GB | R | R | R | R | R | R | ? | R/W/F | R/W/F | R | R | R/W/F | R/W | R/W | ||||||
| Ditto Max | R | R | R | R | R/W | R | R/W | R/W | R*/W* | |||||||||||
| Ditto Max Professional | R | R | R | R | R/W | R | R/W | R/W | R/W | |||||||||||
Notes:
- R - read capable
- W - write capable
- F - format capable
- The capacity figures used in the product names above are double the actual (native) capacity. Iomega and other manufacturers assume 2:1 data compression.
- Ditto Max requires version 3.2 Pro of the Iomega backup software to support the Ditto Max 10GB tape cartridge.
- Above data gathered from here.