IBM TS1155 Tape Drive, Model 55F (3592-55F)

3592-55F is the IBM TS1155 tape drive, the Fibre Channel model of the 3592 generation 5 drive. It has a dual-port 8 Gbps Fibre Channel host interface with a maximum burst transfer rate of 800 MB/s and supports N and L ports with auto-configure. Its sibling 3592-55E is the 10 Gb Ethernet model, which does not support Fibre Channel.

Native sustained data rate is 360 MB/s in the 55F format, which is the native format for both the 55F and the 55E. Native capacity depends on the cartridge: 15 TB on a JD or JZ cartridge, 7 TB on a JC or JY, 3 TB on a JL and 900 GB on a JK. Write-once-read-many cartridges, capacity scaling, short cartridges and encryption are all supported, and encryption-enabled drives read and write the 55F encrypted format.

Earlier TS1150 drives such as 3592-E08 reach 10 TB on a JD cartridge at the same 360 MB/s native rate, and the 55F also reads and writes in the E08 format. The TS1155 installs in TS4500 tape libraries, where library feature 9690 field-installs a 55F in a D25, D55, L25 or L55 frame and feature 9705 covers plant installation of a 55F or 55G.