Fujifilm Manufactured 100 Million LTO Cartridges

Fujifilm Recording Media USA, Inc., a subsidiary of Fujifilm Holdings Corporation, a manufacturer of storage media, has manufactured over 100 million LTO (Linear Tape-Open) Ultrium data cartridges since its release of the first generation of LTO in 2000.

This equates to over 53 thousand petabytes of storage and more than 41 million miles of tape, enough to wrap around the globe 1,653 times.

Data growth and extended retention period requirements are challenging corporations, government agencies and other organizations that are faced with limited IT budgets. As a result, there is an increasing need to cost effectively store large volumes of data over long periods of time. The LTO Ultrium format, an open tape storage format, meets the challenge by delivering performance, capacity and reliability while offering lower TCO compared to other technologies.

Since 2000, Fujifilm has led the development of large-capacity LTO Ultrium data tape for backup and archival applications. The most recent Fujifilm LTO Ultrium 6 data cartridge is based on Fujifilm’s Nanocubic technology and incorporates Barium Ferrite (BaFe) particles, with performance and longer archival life compared to conventional metal particle (MP) tape. BaFe particles are also used in the production of large multi-terabyte enterprise system data tape, supporting the needs of various customers in diverse industries for their large volume backup and archival needs.

“Fujifilm’s achievements speak clearly to the success of the LTO tape storage format,” said Steve Kenniston, business line executive, IBM data protection and retention. “We see data center managers continue to use tape to protect data, as well as leverage tape with new use cases, such as LTFS, to store the vast amounts of data capacity they have while maximizing their overall dollar per terabyte. As companies like Fujifilm keep breaking the barriers of storage capacity with their technologies, the amount of corporate data stored on tape will only continue to grow.“

In January 2010, Fujifilm and IBM announced a world record in data density on linear magnetic tape of 29.5 billion bits per square inch using BaFe particles. This demonstrated the potential of a high capacity tape cartridge capable of storing 35TB of uncompressed data. Fujifilm also conducted a study that demonstrated the long term archivability of BaFe magnetic particles, withstanding realistic storage environment simulations. Results showed no change to BaFe magnetic properties under accelerated test methods, proving its reliability well over 30 years.

“Given the growing importance of storing large volumes of valuable data and content, Fujifilm remains committed to developing and providing high-performance and superior quality media that responds to the needs of our customers now and into the future,” said Peter Faulhaber, president, Fujifilm Recording Media USA.