• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • LTO Tape Drives a Smashing Success

    October 2, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    The Linear Tape Open (LTO) tape drive format that was created through the collaboration of IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Seagate Technologies, has essentially rolled all over its competition in the tape archiving market.

    According to the three LTO partners, more than 1.5 million LTO Ultrium tape drives and more than 50 million LTO tape cartridges have shipped since the LTO format first became available in September 2000.

    Products meeting the Ultrium LTO 3 specification, which adds write once, read many (WORM) capabilities to the tapes, have just begun shipping. Now, the LTO partners are working on adding native data encryption and decryption capabilities–which IBM just added to its TS1120 (formerly the 3592) tape drives and Sun Microsystems just added to its T10000 tape drives (the kicker to the 9940 mainframe tape drives).

    While these two tape drives can be linked to mainframe, i5/OS, Unix, Windows, and Linux platforms, they are not cheap. LTO units are much less expensive and much more appropriate for midrange customers. These shops will no doubt wait for encryption to be added to LTO 4 drives.

    With the LTO 4 specification, WORM capabilities will be improved, encryption will be added, compressed data transfer rates (assuming a 2:1 data compression ratio) will be boosted to 240 MB/sec (up from 160 MB/sec with LTO 3 drives), and native cartridge capacity with compression will be boosted to 1.6 TB. With the LTO 5 spec, tape cartridge capacity will double to 3.2 TB and data transfer rates on compressed data will hit 360 MB/sec. Generation 6 of the LTO technology will double capacity again to 6.4 TB per cartridge and boost data transfer rates to 540 MB/sec. The original LTO drives from six years ago held 200 GB of compressed data and transferred data at 40 MB/sec. LTO 3 spec was hammered out in October 2004, and products began making their way to market in 2005. Each generation takes about two years to get a spec together, which means that the LTO 4 spec should be done this year, if history is any guide, with products appearing in 2007. In 2005, the LTO partners scaled back on data transfer rates on future designs, cutting back from a doubling transfer rates every two years to simply boosting them.

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 15, Number 39 -- October 2, 2006

    Sponsored by
    VISUAL LANSA 16 WEBINAR

    Trying to balance stability and agility in your IBM i environment?

    Join this webinar and explore Visual LANSA 16 – our enhanced professional low-code platform designed to help organizations running on IBM i evolve seamlessly for what’s next.

    🎙️VISUAL LANSA 16 WEBINAR

    Break Monolithic IBM i Applications and Unlock New Value

    Explore modernization without rewriting. Decouple monolithic applications and extend their value through integration with modern services, web frameworks, and cloud technologies.

    🗓️ July 10, 2025

    ⏰ 9 AM – 10 AM CDT (4 PM to 5 PM CEST)

    See the webinar schedule in your time zone

    Register to join the webinar now

    What to Expect

    • Get to know Visual LANSA 16, its core features, latest enhancements, and use cases
    • Understand how you can transition to a MACH-aligned architecture to enable faster innovation
    • Discover native REST APIs, WebView2 support, cloud-ready Azure licensing, and more to help transform and scale your IBM i applications

    Read more about V16 here.

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Admin Alert: Setting the Record Straight on iSeries Access and ODBC Freeware Kevin Juenemann’s Quick Query Utility

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

TFH Volume: 15 Issue: 39

This Issue Sponsored By

    Table of Contents

    • AIX’s Partition Relocation Support Pushed to 2007; i5/OS V5R5 Support Unclear
    • BOS CEO Steps Down, Company Brings in Outsider Replacement
    • InfiniBand Gets iSCSI Tweaks to Support Storage
    • LTO Tape Drives a Smashing Success
    • IBM to Try Selling Technical Services as Products
    • AIX’s Partition Relocation Support Pushed to 2007; i5/OS V5R5 Support Unclear
    • IBM Shoots Down Quad-Core Power5+ Modules for the System i
    • COMMON is Fun Again
    • Chip Makers Embrace Co-Processors, Again
    • Shearer Talks Up the Strengths of the System i

    Content archive

    • The Four Hundred
    • Four Hundred Stuff
    • Four Hundred Guru

    Recent Posts

    • With Power11, Power Systems “Go To Eleven”
    • With Subscription Price, IBM i P20 And P30 Tiers Get Bigger Bundles
    • Izzi Buys CNX, Eyes Valence Port To System Z
    • IBM i Shops “Attacking” Security Concerns, Study Shows
    • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 26
    • Liam Allan Shares What’s Coming Next With Code For IBM i
    • From Stable To Scalable: Visual LANSA 16 Powers IBM i Growth – Launching July 8
    • VS Code Will Be The Heart Of The Modern IBM i Platform
    • The AS/400: A 37-Year-Old Dog That Loves To Learn New Tricks
    • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 25

    Subscribe

    To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

    Pages

    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Contributors
    • Four Hundred Monitor
    • IBM i PTF Guide
    • Media Kit
    • Subscribe

    Search

    Copyright © 2025 IT Jungle