Quantum in Partnership With IBM for LTO-10 Drives and Media

Quantum Corporation announced a partnership with IBM Corp. on the next gen of LTO technology.

Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will collaborate in the development of LTO-10 tape drives and media in order to accelerate time-to-market, capacity, and performance.

The specific terms of the agreement are confidential and will not be disclosed. 

“With the massive growth in data, as well as pervasive ransomware threats, low-cost ultra-secure LTO is more relevant than ever,” says Jamie Lerner, president and CEO, Quantum. “It is a strategic technology for large scale storage, and it is imperative that LTO technology continues to evolve to meet growing marketplace needs. This partnership underscores our commitment to LTO and our desire to collaborate with IBM in their development of LTO-10.“

About LTO Technology
LTO, also known as the LTO Ultrium format, is an open tape format designed for high-capacity long term storage and is used by many of the world’s largest hyperscalers and enterprises for archiving data and protecting data vs. ransomware. Since the first LTO products were brought to market, over 5.6 million drives¹, 351 million cartridges and over 370 billion terabytes of media capacity have been shipped, making LTO Ultrium the most successful tape format in history.

The latest gen of LTO, LTO-8, began shipping in 2017 with tape capacity of 12TB per drive. The upcoming LTO-9 has a targeted capacity point of 18TB per drive. Work is beginning on LTO-10, and this agreement will focus on accelerating the development of LTO-10, as well as improving the capacity and performance of this next gen.

Importance of LTO Tape for Cold storage and Ransomware Protection
LTO tape is increasingly being used for large scale cold storage due to its low cost, extremely low power and cooling requirements, reliability for storing data for decades, and storage density. Quantum is providing tape technology to hyperscale environments.

“We are excited about this partnership with IBM,” says Bruno Hald, GM of secondary storage, Quantum. “Customers and the tape market in general will benefit with faster time-to-market of the next LTO gen, and its anticipated improvements in LTO storage densities. We believe this news will be very well received in the market for all of those customers that rely on LTO as a key part of their storage infrastructure.“

¹ Source: IDC Tape Worldwide Factory Out Report