Tape Drive Repair Services

Recycle -- Reduce -- Repair

Pinetree Peripherals can provide reliable and cost-effective to repairs for your 9, 18, 36 track, DLT, SDLT, LTO or AIT tape drives.

Pinetree Peripherals is the worldwide industry leader in providing tape drive repair services.

We offer flat rate tape drive repair pricing, 3 to 5 working day turn-around and a 120 day warranty on all our repairs. Expedited repair and Advance Exchange services are also available. Pinetree has large inventory of refurbished tape drives, FRUs, sub-assemblies and autoloaders that are tested, certified and ready to ship today. As well as depot repair, onsite repair for the continental United States, Advance Exchange Services, Maintenance Contracts and FREE technical support by e-mail, for your tape backup drives. ‘Legacy’ and ‘End-of Life’ tape backup drive products are our specialty!

9, 18, 36 track tape drives

Born in the 60's, and still alive today, 9 track is one of the longest running standards in the tape industry. At the time of introduction the average 50MB capacity was more than most computers could store and therefore made a nice backup option, as well as a reliable way to move data from one computer to the next.
In the early eighties, IBM introduced the 18 track tape drives that, relied on self-contained tape cartridges rather instead of external reels. It was also distinguished by a relatively high data transfer rate: 3 megabytes per second. This was because it was able to read and write linear data across 18 recording tracks simultaneously, or 38,000 bytes per inch of tape These units came in single and dual drive configurations with 7-10 tape cartridge autoloaders available, on most units.
The ½ inch tape cartridges were easier to store and handle than the round reels, not to mention the storage capacity differences.
In the mid eighties, the 36 track tape drive was introduced by IBM. The 36 track head was able to record 800 megabytes of data on a single tape. The IDRC option allowed it to record up to 2400 megabytes on a single extended tape These drives are still the heart of many tape library systems today, because of their reliability and scability.

This was Pinetree's Core business. As the world moved forward, we maintained our technical expertise in keeping these tape back-up drives. functional. We still repair these tape drives today. Like all of our product offerings, our services on these tape drives come with a full 120 day warranty on parts and labor.

DLT & SDLT tape drives

Digital Linear Tape (DLT) is a magnetic tape data storage technology developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1984 onwards. In 1994 the technology was purchased by Quantum Corporation, who currently manufactures drives and licenses the technology and trademark. Dell PowerVault DLT uses linear serpentine recording with multiple tracks on half-inch (12.7 mm) wide tape. The cartridges contain a single reel and the tape is pulled out of the cartridge by means of a leader tape attached to the take- up reel inside the drive.
SDLT adds an optical servo system that reads servo patterns on the back of the tape. This added functionality keeps the data tracks on the front of the tape correctly aligned with the read/write heads. This is important for newer tape media, which have very thin dense data tracks; 256, 384 and 768 data tracks on a half inch wide tape are now common.

Pinetree added these units to our service offerings in the late 1990's when we began to offer On-Site and maintenance contract repair services. As our business core move into tape libaries, we found our expertise with these tape units allowed us to expand into new markets with little disruption to our day to day activities.

LTO tape drives

Linear Tape Open (LTO) is a magnetic tape data storage technology originally developed in the late 1990's. As the need for an open alternative to DLT became evident, the LTO first generation was born. was developed as a (more or less) drop-in replacement for DLT and has a similar design of ½-inch wide tape in a (slightly smaller) single reel cartridge. This made it easy for robotic tape library vendors to convert their DLT libraries into LTO libraries. The most recent version was released in 2010 (LTO-5) and can hold 1.5 TB in the same size cartridge.

Pinetree added these units to our service offerings in the 2002 when our customers began to purchase tape library units based on this open technology. With the addition of LTO as well as AIT drives to our repair offerings Pinetree is truly a world-class solution provider.