4 Level Reed Solomon Error Correction. VXA is the only tape drive that employs a four-level error correction that is applied in two phases. First, each packet includes a Reed-Solomon ECC, which can correct small errors typically caused by noise or phase shifts. Second, when the packets are collected in the buffer segment, they form a matrix that employs a three-dimensional Reed-Solomon ECC (X-axis ECC, Y-axis ECC, and Diagonal ECC).This error correction scheme can correct as many as two lost packets in each row, two in each column, and two in each diagonal of the buffer array. This helps VXA to achieve a bit error rate of 1x10-17 (for example, this bit error rate is roughly equivalent to filling a football stadium full of sand and finding a single black grain  -- see figure 3). VXA Variable Speed Function: VXA’s variable speed function enables VXA to adjust the tape speed to match the in-coming data transfer rate of the host. This speed adjustment enables VXA to be the first tape drive to eliminate back-hitching and the delays and media wear associated with it. Eliminating back-hitching also reduces wear on the drive mechanism and the tapes which leads to greater data restore and reliability. VXA can vary the tape speed to the rate at which the host receives or sends data. When the host’s data transfer stops completely, VXA slows to Ready Mode before commencing to read or write mode again. By using Ready Mode instead of back-hitching, VXA optimizes backup and restore job times significantly. VXA’s Ready Mode has a reset time of 25 milliseconds and can be as much as 80 times faster than other tape   device’s back-hitch operation, which can take anywhere up to two seconds to complete. p1   p2   p3   p4   p5   p6