Milestone for LTO: 100 Million Cartridges Shipped

Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Program, a technology developed jointly by HP, IBM Corporation and Quantum Corp, today announced new shipment figures that demonstrate LTO technology’s continued strong upward trajectory with over 100 million cartridges shipped since the format’s inception in September 2000. To put this in context, the storage capabilities of all LTO generations equates to over 40 exabytes of compressed cartridge capacity (assuming 2 to 1 data compression), or about 40 trillion books – equivalent to the number of books in over 1 million Libraries of Congress.

You need a better way to secure data

The LTO format has also seen continued growth related to tape drives, with shipments now exceeding 2.5 million tape drives since format inception, and almost a million new drives shipping since Q3 2006.

"Customers are continuing to harness the unique benefits of tape to achieve low cost of ownership, maintain green energy efficiencies and provide optimal security," said Bob Wilson, Vice President, Storage Platforms Division, HP. "LTO tape technology delivers versatile, reliable and high-performance solutions that can help streamline the data protection process for businesses of all sizes."

LTO format generation 4 technology provides high performance, high capacities and addresses data security with tape drive encryption. Tape’s low energy consumption can help address green energy saving initiatives providing strong TCO advantages in tiered storage deployments or as a standalone solution. A recent study found that tape can deliver significant savings in energy costs over alternative data storage approaches(1) and that implementing tape with disk as part of a best practices approach can provide substantial ROI benefits to IT managers. Tape also continues to be the media of choice for high volume data transport, supporting applications such as disaster recovery.

"Is tape going away?" said Dick Cosby, systems administrator, Electronic Data Processing Services. "I’d have to emphatically answer ‘not here.’ As an integral part of our storage hierarchy, tape provides us with the flexibility, reliability and low TCO that we require for top-tier data protection," continued Cosby. "As the LTO format has introduced new generations, we, like many, have upgraded our systems to take advantage of increased capacities and features that each new generation of LTO offers, and our data protection strategies are stronger as a result."

LTO-4 tape technology provides up to 1.6TB of capacity (assuming 2:1 compression) per cartridge and transfer rates of up to 240MB per second (assuming 2:1 compression). The format provides for WORM (Write-Once, Read-Many) functionality that allows companies to cost-effectively store data in a non-rewriteable format to help address compliance needs. And for security, LTO format generation 4 technology provides tape drive level-based encryption to enable the writing of encrypted data to the LTO-4 tape cartridge to help secure data during transportation and at rest in a vault.

LTO format generation 4 drives support backwards-compatible read-and-write capability with LTO generation 3 cartridges and backward read capabilities with LTO generation 2 cartridges, to help protect the investment customers have made in LTO products, and to provide seamless migration for customers desiring to take advantage of the unique benefits of LTO-4.

How to License LTO Ultrium Technology
The LTO Program has historically offered several different license packages – from enhanced packages that provide the specifications and licenses to manufacture LTO Ultrium products, to basic packages providing LTO format specifications.

Buyers seeking LTO Ultrium format-compliant products should look for the LTO Ultrium format compliance verification trademarks on both tape drives and data cartridges. Storage and media manufacturers interested in licensing LTO formats may obtain information by contacting the LTO Program.

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