LTO Consortium Study Finds Storage Managers Continue to Recognize Value of Tape

The Linear Tape-Open Program and its technology provider companies, HP, IBM Corporation and Quantum Corp, released survey results conducted by Fleishman-Hillard Research showing that storage managers continue to recognize the value of tape in the storage environment.

A hierarchical strategy for interim storage continues to be favored by most managers as more than 60 percent indicated a hybrid storage blend of disk and tape to address performance, data protection, long-term retention, and cost control. Of those, nearly half indicated continued usage of tape in the future as a significant part of the environment. Increasingly, respondents who currently operate in a disk-only environment are planning to add tape to their storage solution in the future.

Additionally, the annual survey indicates a trend of increased use of tape for long-term storage by managers operating in tape-only and blended tape/disk environments. Managers in tape-only environments are increasingly planning to use more tape as 37 percent indicated more use of tape in the future, an upward trend from 2006 when 24 percent cited the same expectation.

“Organizations require storage solutions that not only protect their data but also improve infrastructure performance and lower costs,” said Jeff Hausman, member of the LTO Program and vice president of HP StorageWorks Data Protection and Deduplication at HP. “A strategic blend of disk and tape technologies can help organizations effectively address their data retention requirements while reducing total cost of ownership.”

The survey, conducted in the fourth quarter of 2009, focused on the views of more than 200 network administrators and mid-level technology specialists at mid- to large-sized companies throughout the United States.

“Our survey shows that over the last four years, the percentage of tape-only users indicating they will eliminate or decrease their usage of tape continues to drop,” said Ken Alldredge, director at Fleishman-Hillard Research, who oversaw the study.

LTO Ultrium generation 5 technology has become available with specifications and new feature details calling for a storage capacity increase to 3TB (assumes 2:1 compression) – a near doubling of capacity over the previous generation – and transfer rates of up to 280MB per second (assumes 2:1 compression). The LTO Ultrium format generation 5 plans include a new partitioning functionality and Linear Tape File System specification enabling capabilities that can help enhance file control and space management, addressing the growing needs of marketplace segments such as Rich Media.

The LTO Ultrium format generation 5 drives are designed with backwards-compatible read-and-write capability with the Ultrium format generation 4 cartridges, and backward read capabilities with generation 3 cartridges, helping to protect investments and ease implementation.