Careful consideration is required in selecting the right controller to support emerging VMEbus-based, 32-bit, high performance systems. To select the proper one-half -in. tape controller for a high performance system, a systems designer must understand where bottlenecks occur and what solutions are available. Any one-half -in. tape controller should be able to move data between a system and a tape drive. How efficiently it accomplishes this can dramatically affect overall system performance. This article will focus on key issues that a systems designer should consider when evaluating one-half -in. tape controllers.