Linear Tape-Open Technology

Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology, a data storage device using a magnetic tape format, was initially developed in 1997 through a joint partnership between HP, IBM and Quantum in an effort to provide a multi-source, viable alternative to the variety of incompatible tape technologies currently available. The 'Open' component of the LTO name was promoted as a means to enable hardware compatibility between a variety of LTO product offerings from multiple vendor sources. Employing a multi-channel, serpentine recording technique, LTO tape technology offers a unique balance between data integrity, high capacity, performance and reliability unequaled in competing tape technologies. LTO Ultrium also offers a unique blend of data compression capabilities that includes a unique dual-mode data compression algorithm that offers both industry-standard data compression and another that minimizes data compression on already previously compressed data.

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LTO Performance

With complete backward-compatibility with LTO-2 and 3, LTO-4 Ultrium generation 4 again doubles the physical storage capacity to 800GB native with a top transfer rate of 320MB/second. New for LTO4 drives is AES256-GCM device-level encryption, providing data security for tapes on or off-line. Average shelf life of an LTO-4 tape cartridge that has been written to one time is 17 years, offering superior archive ROI.

ULTRIUM LTO FORMAT	LTO-1	LTO-2	LTO-3	LTO-4
Capacity (2:1 compression)	200 GB	400 GB	800 GB	1.6 TB
Capacity (Native)	100 GB	200 GB	400 GB	800 GB
Transfer Rate (2:1 compression)	20 - 40 MB/s	40 - 80 MB/s	80 - 160 MB/s	160 - 320 MB/s
Transfer Rate (Native)	10 - 20 MB/s	20 - 40 MB/s	40 - 80 MB/s	80 - 160 MB/s
Media Metal Particle, Metal Partical Metal, Particle Thin Film, Encoding RLL 1, 7 PRML PRML PRML	RLL 1, 7	PRML	PRML	PRML

LTO Connectivity

Tape libraries are traditionally set up for LVD SCSI. Manufacturers offer a filbre channel interface but this is usually a SCSI to Fibre bridge. The drives on the other hand have both a SCSI and fibre option. The library can be attached to a fibre SAN to increase bandwidth and to ease the overhead on messaging networks, but traditionally most libraries are made available to the network via GIGe. This means that you would connect the library to a server via LVD SCSI.

What Environment Best fits Tape Technology

LTO-4 tape provides affordability, mobility, reliability, scalability and security for both short and long-term data storage. LTO-4 tape technology is generally employed for Archival/Data Preservation, Backup/Restore, Content Acquisition/Distribution, such as video surveillance, and Disaster Recovery application environments. LTO-4 WORM is ideal for regulatory compliance applications such as electronic patient data, financial and tax data, government/public documents that, by law, cannot be altered or erased, and must be retained for a specific duration of time. Coupled with the new LTO-4 data encryption capabilities, it is a superior technology for long-term, secure data storage.

Configuration Overview

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