Quarter-inch cartridge

To a very large extent it was the efficiency and openness of this organization which encouraged hardware and software developers to use this type of drive and media.

The tape in a QIC cartridge is not physically attached to the reels and is never completely unwound.

This is again different from other cassettes or cartridges, which generally have some form of clip anchoring on at least one end of the tape.

This is accomplished by winding the tape from beginning to end and back in one operation, allowing the belt to equalize itself.

[5][9] Other Data Cartridge (DC) look-alikes: Later, the smaller Minicartridge (MC) form-factor was introduced.

This version, developed by 3M, uses a longer and wider (8 mm) tape to give higher capacities.

[1] A variant from Sony that uses a wider .315 inch (8 mm) tape and increases the recording density.

[16] In many cases a standard QIC drive and backup package can use the extended length to store additional data, however in some cases an attempt to reformat a QIC-EX cartridge fails since the time taken to traverse the extra length triggers a timeout in the drive or controlling software intended to detect a broken tape.