F6484 Magnetic Tape Unit

The F6484, which began shipping in June 1999, was Fujitsu’s high-speed magnetic tape unit that used IBM 3590-format tape media. Fujitsu already had the F6470 magnetic tape unit (which started shipping in September 1987) that worked with IBM 3480-format tape media, the F6473A (which started shipping in March 1991), which could be expanded to house up to four drives, and the F6473K (which started shipping in July 1993), which recorded in a 36-track format. The F6484, however, dramatically increased the storage capacity per tape over 36-track magnetic tape units by recording in a 128-track format and, thus, met mounting needs for more data storage.