Several models of the 3851 were available. The smallest A1 holding 706 cartridges storing 35.3GB, while the largest A4 held 4,720 cartridges storing 236GB in a 20-foot (6.1 m) long unit. All of the units were also available in the "B models" which added a second controller for on-line backups, as well as offline storage.

IBM 3850 MSS mass storage system (simply known as MSS) was first announced by IBM in late 1974 with data cartridges in form of circular cylinders able to store 50 megabytes of data.

The IBM 3850 Mass Storage System consists of IBM 3330 Disk Storage and one or two IBM 3851 Mass Storage Facilities. The MSS provides very large data capacity, all under system control.

The more recent IBM 3851 Mass Storage Facility, part of the IBM 3850 Mass Storage System, represents a new direction in mass storage development, namely, it is two-dimensional. With the maturity of magnetic bubble technology, more sophisticated, massive, multi-trillion-bit storage systems are not far in the future.

IBM 3851 Mass Storage Facility—The 3851 is manufac¬ tured in Tucson for customers worldwide. Known as a library storage product, it stores in¬ formation in fist-sized tape car¬ tridges which can hold 50 mil¬ lion bytes each. That's about as much information as is con¬ tained in 13 Webster's dic¬ tionaries. The cartridges are

IBM 3851 Mass Storage Cartridges: Description These cartridges represent the first step in technologies to automate the reading, writing and retrieval of data. Previous to this, all data had to be retrieved, loaded and dismounted by hand. Description (French)

The more recent IBM 3851 Mass Storage Facility, part of the IBM 3850 Mass Storage System, represents a new direction in mass storage development, namely, it is two-dimensional. With the maturity of magnetic bubble technology, more sophisticated, massive, multi-trillion-bit storage systems are not far in the future.

2021年1月11日 · The IBM 3850 MSS offers a new idea in data storage, merging the random-access feature of disk drives with the benefits of tape drives. With the data cartridge as its main piece, the new system features capacities from 35 billion to 472 billion characters of data.

2025年3月17日 · Discover the cornerstone of mainframe computing with the vintage IBM 3850 3851 MASS STORE CARTRIDGE, a testament to the era of classic data processing.

Using a honeycomb-shaped array of storage compartments, the 3850-series MSS used as recording media small circular cylinders, 2 inches in diamteer and 4 inches long, each holding a spool with 770 inches of magnetic tape. Each cartridge held 50MB of data. For more information on the 3850 MSS, see Pugh, E., "IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems," p. 512.