A:

The native capacity is the raw or actual amount of data a device can hold. On the other hand, compressed capacity is twice the native capacity of a media which is usually given as the maximum possible amount of data that could be written to a tape. Generally, tape cartridges are rated in compressed capacity , which usually assumes a 2:1 compression ratio over the native capacity, thus, we have an 80 GB native capacity and a 160 GB compressed capacity for this particular item.