IBM Half-High LTO 5 SAS Drive

The IBM Half-High LTO Generation 5 SAS Tape Drive is a data storage device that is designed to backup and restore open-systems applications.

The tape drive is available as an internal device or an external device. It is the fifth generation in the Ultrium series of products, and is available with a Serial Attached SCSI interface (SAS). This model incorporates the LTO IBM Ultrium 5 Half-High Tape Drive.

It maintains the competitive total cost of ownership of LTO tape storage. The SAS interface supports internal plug-and-play capability with select System x and BladeCenter systems, as well as external attachment in one of IBM’s supported external tape drive enclosures.

Features and functions:

• Dual-port 6 Gbps Serial Attached Small Computer Systems interface (SAS)
• Native storage capacity of 1500 GB (1.5 TB) per cartridge (3000 GB at 2:1 compression)
• Maximum native data transfer rate of up to 140 MB per second
• Burst data transfer rate of up to 600 MB per second
• 256 MB read-and-write cache
• Support for encryption on Ultrium 5 tape cartridges
• Single-character display (SCD) operator panel

Service and support:

• One-year parts only2 on tape drive options
• Three years parts on external options 3628L5X and 3628N5X

LTO 5 Media Cartridge (49Y9899)
The tape drive uses the IBM LTO Ultrium 1500 GB Data Cartridge and is compatible with the cartridges of its predecessor, the IBM Half-High LTO Ultrium 4 Tape Drive.

The drive performs the following functions:

• Reads and writes generation 5 cartridges to generation 5 format
• Reads and writes generation 4 cartridges to generation 4 format
• Reads generation 3 cartridges

The drive reads tapes that have been written by other licensed Ultrium 5 drives. It also writes to tapes that can be read by other licensed Ultrium 5 drives.

Cleaning Cartridge Options

• DDS Gen 5 Cleaning Cartridge Option (49Y9892)
• LTO Cleaning Cartridge Option (49Y9893)
• DDS Gen 6 Cleaning Cartridge Option (49Y9894)

RDX Media Cartridge Options

• IBM RDX 750GB Cartridge (81Y3645)
• IBM RDX 1TB Cartridge (81Y3647)

Key prerequisites

• A supported System x or BladeCenter server that supports SAS drives with an available PCI Express expansion slot.
• A dedicated SAS adapter with internal and external connectors.

Planned availability date

• May 31, 2011