ArVid (Archiver on Video) () was a data backup solution using a VHS tape as a storage medium. It was very popular in Russia and the rest of the former USSR in the mid-1990s.
It was produced in Zelenograd, Russia by PO KSI.
A VHS recorder unit should be connected to an ArVid ISA board by a composite video cable. Unit operation is controlled by a remote control emulator using an LED.
Device may operate in two modes: low data rate at 200 KB/s and high data rate at 325 KB/s (equivalent to roughly 1.33ÃÂ and 2.17ÃÂ CDR recording speed). The original, lower recording speed was retained as a user option because not all VHS recorders of the time offered sufficient recording quality to reliably support the higher speed.
An E-180 video tape is able to hold 2 GB of uncompressed data at the lower rate, more than sufficient for most PC hard drives of the time. This can be shown by calculating 200 KB/s ÃÂ 60 s/min ÃÂ 60 min/h ÃÂ 3 h = 2.06 GB (2.06 ÃÂ 2<sup>30</sup> bytes), which also leaves a few minutes spare for header and synchronisation space.
Note that it is unclear here whether "200 kbyte" means (200 ÃÂ 10<sup>3</sup>) or (200 ÃÂ 2<sup>10</sup>); the above calculation assumes the latter, but the former still produces a capacity of 2.01 GB (2.01 ÃÂ 2<sup>30</sup> bytes), providing 2.00 GB of capacity in a little under 2 hours and 59 minutes. Similarly, this means that an E240 4-hour tape, using the higher data rate, would be capable of storing between 4.35 and 4.46 GB (2<sup>30</sup> bytes), approximately equivalent to a standard single-layer recordable DVD.