OWC Mercury Pro LTO Tape Desktop Thunderbolt 3 Subsystem With ArGest Backup Software

OWC (Other World Computing, Inc.) announces the availability of the Mercury Pro LTO external system with complete macOS, Windows, and Linux compatibility plus bundled ArGest Backup software supporting LTFS bulk transfer and delivery, backup, archive, and storage options.

Mercury Pro LTO front and rear

ArGest software solutions

Monitoring and evaluation professionals, corporations, government branches, and small businesses face the same challenge: managing an ever-increasing amount of more complex data. Higher resolution, complex audio, and diverse formats are the project norm. Organizational content is projected to grow 50-70% annually as more data is digitalized and licensing regulatory compliance requirements to become more stringent.

There’s a priceless familiarity in using LTO to protect your data. The included ArGest Backup software provides easy drag and drop asset management utilizing the revered and reliable BRU archival format. For reliable backup and long-term, deep archival or the SNIA Bulk Transfer Standard with the LTFS. The Mercury Pro LTO solution provides options for both archival and large-scale data transfer. Advanced and future ready, LTO tape is the dominant archiving medium that has continued to improve and grow in both performance and capacity since being introduced in 2000. Because LTO is an open standard with many support manufacturers and vendors, users can be confident of access their data with any brand of LTO hardware for decades to come. The Mercury Pro LTO is currently available with LTO-7 or LTO-8 drives providing native capacities of 2.5TB and 6TB (LTO-7), 6TB, 9TB, and 12TB (LTO-8), and is designed to support the future release of LTO-9 drives later this year.

Mercury Pro LTO drive highlights:

• Store more: up to 6TB native/15TB compressed ⁽¹⁾ on the LTO-7 drive or 12TB native/30TB compressed storage capacity per tape cartridge

• Flexible: The LTO-7 drive will read LTO-7, and read and write LTO-6 and LTO-7 tapes while the LTO-8 Drive reads and writes LTO-8, LTO-M8, and LTO-7 tapes

• Store longer: 30-year or greater tape longevity

• ROI: Lowest cost storage format; as low as $0.02/GB and up to 50x less costly than online storage

• LTFS support: archive files/folders with drag and drop ease

• Compliance ready: supports WORM cartridges required by legal/regulatory record keeping

• Fast tape creation: up to 300MB/s native/750MB/s ⁽²⁾ compressed transfer rates

• Configurable drive bay: add an optional 2.5/3.5-inch SSD for up to 16TB onboard storage capacity

• Expansive: second Thunderbolt 3 port for adding up to 5 additional Thunderbolt devices or your choice of a USB-C or DisplayPort device

• See more: DisplayPort 1.4 supports up to an 8K display ⁽⁴⁾

• Charge while working: 85W of notebook charging

• Transportable: Compact form factor with built-in handles for moving between set and studio

• Worry-free: up to 3-year company’s limited warranty with lifetime US-based support

ArGest Backup powered by BRU technology is a fast backup and archiving software. The user can backup and archive folders, files, or session files in major applications to LTO-7 and LTO-8 tapes at real-world speeds up to 300MB/s. The archives are then fully verifiable and restorable with the maximum amount of data on nearly any OS, something no other backup utility can provide. ArGest Backup is also the only Backup and archiving tool that can recover from errors and will restore as much data as possible even in the event of a lost or damaged tape.

The units ship with ArGest Backup Desktop Edition. Designed for personal or small one to two-person shops with a single tape drive and disk-based backup. Backups can be performed in more manageable segments where full and incremental data coverage fits on 1 or 2 tapes or can be safely stored on a removable disk or device such as the HPE RDX removable disk solution.

Need more power and flexibility? Upgrade to the Workstation or Producer’s Editions that add additional tape drives. Workstation Edition supports a second tape drive (Doubler mode) and tape automation (50 slots and two tape drives). The Producer’s Edition expands support with drag and drop restore support for CMX 3600 EDLs. Full recognition and parsing of Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, and Resolve projects, production-oriented Film and Episodic metadata support, and other ease-of-use features aimed at the M&E industry user.

Click to enlarge

ArGest Backup software highlights:

• Easy and familiar: backup and archive folders, files, or session files with drag and drop simplicity in major applications

• Fastest: real-world LTO tape speeds up to 300MB/s using LTO-7 and LTO-8 tape devices for fast backup and recovery

• Flexible: verify BRU archives at any time on macOS, Windows, or Linux

• Diverse: can be used to Backup to portable USB or Thunderbolt drives, removable disk storage such as RDX and Lyve Mobile, local cloud storage, and tape media

• Reliable recovery: restore maximum possible data, even with a missing or damaged tape in a multiple tape archive 

• Auditable: Check media status any time, even on a different system or OS with anytime verify 

• Efficient: create 2 identical tapes in a single backup or archive operation with Doubler Archival Mode 

• Manage: automatically creates organized tape catalogs for fast searching and restore access time

• Complete: after archive is complete, create a self-contained CD/DVD/USB or network key with all components required files to restore on a non-BRU system

• Diagnose: built-in functions for checking and reporting LTO equipment operational status during all Backup and restore operations

• Risk-free: 30-day free trial of full featured, fully functional demo

Click to enlarge

Pricing and availability:

• The Mercury Pro LTO is available to order from the company webstore for $4,599 and includes ArGest Backup, LTO-8 tape, and cleaning cartridge. Additional solutions up to 16TB are also available.

• ArGest Backup is available for single purchase starting at $249 on the firm’s software Webstore.

⁽¹⁾ 30TB/900MB/s with 2.5:1 data compression
⁽²⁾ Full DisplayPort 1.4 capabilities depend on host computer support of DisplayPort 1.4 spec through its Thunderbolt 3 connection, host computer GPU capabilities, and connecting cable capabilities.
⁽³⁾ Apple Mac models with Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 ports can connect to the Mercury Pro LTO by using the Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter (sold separately).