Spectra Logic Expands Support of IBM TS1140 Tape Drive

Spectra Logic Corp. announced the expanded availability of drives based on the design of the IBM TS1140 tape drive within its T-Series tape library family.

In addition to its enterprise T-Finity, Spectra will now offer TS1140-based drives with its T950 enterprise tape library and its T-Series T380 mid-range tape library.

Spectra’s BlackPearl Deep Storage Appliance also supports the TS1140 tape drive technology. The high capacity TS1140 tape drive technology provides organisations of all sizes the ability to leverage higher speed tape drive throughput, utilise a higher capacity tape media cartridge, and reuse their media when migrating to future drive generations, while managing burgeoning data growth and data center space constraints.

“As the only vendor to offer TS1140 technology with a mid-range tape library, Spectra is enabling a broader set of companies to benefit from the exceptional storage density, energy efficiency, and high performance of enterprise tape drive technology,” said Molly Rector, EVP product management and WW marketing, Spectra Logic. “This announcement also expands our deep storage offering as the BlackPearl Deep Storage Appliance, which enables tape-based object storage, supports the TS1140 and the high value, cost-effective IBM LTO tape drives equally well. Our customers of all sizes like the choice of the open standard LTO technology and the high capacity TS1140 technology for their long-term storage.”

The company is currently the only tape library vendor offering the TS1140 technology in a mid-range library and is the only tape library vendor aside from IBM offering them with their highest capacity tape libraries.

The TS1140 provides 4TB native capacity (12TB 3:1 compression) per cartridge and native sustained data transfer rates of 250MB/s native (650MB/s compressed). It can support connectivity to 8Gb FC environments.

“Spectra Logic’s TS1140 technology high-capacity tape drives in a mid-range tape library address a growing demand from small and mid-sized organisations that use HPC,” said Steve Conway,  IDC research VP, HPC. “This part of the market is expanding, especially the oil and gas, life sciences, financial services, and data analytics segments. Flexible tape storage is an important requirement for these organisations.”

TS1140 tape drive technology will be available with the Spectra T950 enterprise tape library in December 2013, and with the T-Series T380 mid-range tape library in the first quarter of calendar year 2014.