Ditto (drive)

The Ditto drive series was a proprietary magnetic tape data storage system released by Iomega during the 1990s. It was marketed as a backup device for personal computers.

An Iomega Ditto internal drive with a 2GB tape and case.
An earlier Iomega Tape 250 drive

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-type tapes.

Technical aspects

Ditto internal drives were connected through the floppy drive channel and used MFM encoding to store data (the same method as on older floppy drives). An ISA 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 and offered a print-through port which allowed a printer to operate while daisy-chained 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 Tecmar 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 or the older (and discontinued) Iomega Jaz.

Models

  • Tape 250 - Released in 1992. Compatible with Irwin's EZTape [1]

Compatibility between tapes and drives

QIC Travan Iomega Ditto
208021202120XLQW512230003000XL3010XL3010XLF30203020XL3020XLF TR-1TR-2TR-3 2GBMax 3GB3.7GBMax 5GBMax 7GBMax 10GB
Tape 250 R/W/FR/W/FR/W
Tape 420 R/W/FR/W/FR/W/FR/W/F
Ditto 800 R/W/FR/W/FR/W/FR/W/F R/W/F
Ditto 510 RRR/W/FR/W/F
Ditto 700 RRR/W/FR/W/F
Ditto 850 RRRR/W/FR/W/FR/W/F
Ditto 1700 RRRR/W/FR/W/FR/W/FR/W/FR/W/FR/W/F
Ditto 3200 RRRRRR ?R/W/FR/W/F RRR/W/F
Ditto 2GB RRRRRR ?R/W/FR/W/F RRR/W/F R/WR/W
Ditto Max RRR RR/WRR/WR/WR/W
Ditto Max Professional RRR RR/WRR/WR/WR/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.[2]

See also

References

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