History 2002: First LTO-2 Drive from HP

Quantum has taken full advantage of the few months lead time it has enjoyed with the SuperDLT 320 (160/16).

The threat of LTO-2 is imminent, however, with the first appearance by Hewlett-Packard, which is launching StorageWorks Ultrium 460, already commercially available, according to the company.

It took nearly 2 years to advance the technology, which has had tremendous success with 5 million cartridges sold since September 2000. Basic specs have doubled over those of LTO-1, which is in keeping with the original roadmap: native capacity of 200GB for the cartridge, with the use of PRML over RLL1.7 for encoding, although still with MP media, transfer rate of 30MB/s, figures which double with ADLC data compression.

The doubling native capacity for LTO-2 is reached by increasing linear density by 55% combined with a 33% increase in the number of tracks, according to Bruce Master, senior program manager for IBM’s WW tape product marketing. He adds that tape movement increases, and, when coupled with linear dentisy, allows for better transfer rate.

Ultrium media is differentiated from Ultrium 1 with suffix on barcode label.

The HP drive, in a full-height 5.25-inch form factor with Ultra 3 SCSI (LVD) interface, can read and write previous generation 100GB LTO-1 cartridges, 30% faster even.

List price is €6,440 for an internal unit, and €6,790 for an external model.

These costs are pretty close to those for LTO-1 when it was launched.

We’re still waiting for Seagate, which as of press time had yet to announce anything, along with IBM, both firms, with HP, are the 3 founders of the LTO consortium.

Big Blue has not announced an official launch, but has already declared that, following on the heels of an LTO-1 that shipped to the tune of 1 million drives, it would launch an LTO-2 model that integrates UItra 160 SCSI and 2Gb FC interfaces to OEMs. The product will be named TotalStorage Ultrium 2 Tape Drive with the same specs as HP’s unit: native 200/30.

“It is expected that products utilizing the IBM drives will become available in early 2003,” said Master.

Next up will be LTO-3 (400/40-80). IBM promised, while speaking about LTO-2, that “next generation tape products are expected throughout 2003.”

The first manufacturers for LTO-2 cartridges to announce themselves are FujiFilm and Maxell. Emtec also signed a license for the new media.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 179 on December 2002 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.