• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Capacious LTO Gen 7 Tape Storage Comes To Market

    October 12, 2015 Alex Woodie

    IBM i shops that are feeling crunched by exploding data volumes may want to check out the latest LTO Generation 7 tape drives that will soon be available from IBM and other manufacturers. Sporting a native capacity of 6 TB per cartridge and a data transfer rate of 300 MB per second, the new LTO 7 drives and media offer twice the capacity and performance of LTO 6 gear, and present a bargain for those demanding low-cost, long-term retention of massive datasets.

    The LTO Consortium unveiled the final LTO 7 specifications in September, and they were down from the original expectations put out by the group a year ago, but only slightly. At that time, the LTO Consortium predicted LTO 7 would have 6.4 TB of native capacity and a native data transfer rate of 315 MB per second. The compression rate of 2.5:1 remains the same.

    The plan calls for a doubling of capacity and performance every generation for LTO 8 through LTO 10, says Laura Loredo, who is Hewlett-Packard‘s the worldwide product manager for enterprise servers storage and networking, and a representative of the LTO Consortium.

    “The main difference with LTO 7 is we have doubled the number of heads on the drive,” Loredo tells IT Jungle. “With LTO 5 and 6, we had 16 heads, so we were writing 16 channels. With LTO 7, we doubled that to 32 channels, so we are reading and writing more data.”

    All that data storage capacity is being gobbled up by customers. More than 4.5 million LTO drives have shipped since the program began over a decade ago, and HP is now shipping 7,000 PB of LTO cartridge capacity per quarter. Much of the demand is coming from the media and entertainment industry, which seems to love the ease of data access that LTFS, the file system created to ride atop tapes, brings to the table.

    The LTO 7 drive supports a native capacity of 6 TB per cartridge and a data transfer rate of 300 MB per second.

    “We are seeing huge increases in the content [media and entertainment companies] are creating with 4K video and now 8K video coming out,” Loredo says. “The amount of data they’re generating is unbelievable. Before you had one or two cameras, but now they have GoPro cameras everywhere, and they want to keep that footage forever basically.”

    A similar story is playing out in the video surveillance, healthcare, and oil and gas markets, Loredo says. “We’re seeing video surveillance everywhere and data being kept for longer times,” she says. “And it’s no good to have cameras where you can’t see the people, so they’re getting more high definition in video surveillance cameras and more cameras everywhere.”

    With all that data piling up, the odds of encountering an error when writing data goes up. But with LTO 7, the error rate has gone down significantly–to approximately one error in 10 to the 19th bits, which is 100 times better than LTO 6. “That is over 4X better than a hard drive,” Loredo says. “When you have a big customer who is writing petabytes of data, then it makes a difference to have an error occurring in 10 to the 19th bit instead of 10 to the 15th bit, like hard drives have.”

    All this data storage capacity may be overkill for some IBM i shops, which generally aren’t going to use LTO 7 for long-term storage of unstructured data, such as video or still images. Instead, IBM i shops will typically use LTO drives to back up their database and applications. But when you can store 15 TB of compressed data on a single $40-LTO 7 cartridge, and that cartridge can sit on a shelf for years before being called into action, it can be hard to turn down.

    IBM LTO 7 Announcements

    On October 6, IBM announced its new LTO Ultrium 7 tape drives, as well as LTO 7 support in a slew of tape storage products, all of which ships November 20. The announcements include:

    • The IBM TS2270 SAS Tape Drive Model H7S is now available with half-height LTO 7 tape drives that attaches to a variety of Power Systems, PureFlex, and BladeCenter systems via Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). This LTO 7 drive carries a list price of $4,648. For more info see IBM United States Hardware Announcement 115-136 (pdf).
    • The IBM TS2900 Tape Autoloader now supports half-height SAS LTO 7 drives. The TS2900 carries a list price of $6,940. See IBM United States Hardware Announcement 115-131 (pdf).
    • The IBM TS3100 and TS3200 tape libraries now support LTO 7 half-height 6 Gbps SAS drives ($4,977), 8 Gbps Fibre Channel drives ($5,225), as well as full-height 8 Gbps Fibre Channel drives ($8,412). See IBM United States Hardware Announcement 115-132 (pdf).
    • The IBM TS3310 tape library now supports 8 Gbps Fibre Channel drives ($20,244). See IBM United States Hardware Announcement 115-130 (pdf).
    • The IBM TS3500 tape library now supports the TS1060 Ultrium 7 drives ($27,923). See IBM United States Hardware Announcement 115-133 (pdf).
    • The IBM TS4500 tape library now supports the TS1060 LTO 7 drive ($27,923). See IBM United States Hardware Announcement 115-129 (pdf).
    • The IBM 7226 Model 1U3 Multi-Media Enclosure now supports half-height SAS LTO 7 drives ($3,400) and half-height Fibre Channel LTO 7 drives ($3,600). See IBM United States Hardware Announcement 115-144 (pdf).

    IBM also announced a product preview for something called the IBM Spectrum Archive Single Drive Edition, which will get an LTO 7 drive in the fourth quarter. We’ll have more information on this when it becomes available.

    RELATED STORIES

    LTO Roadmap Extended To Gen 10

    Ultrium Tape Drive Makers Ready LTO 6 Units

    LTO Gen 6 Licenses Now Available

    LTO Finds Its Mojo, Extends Roadmap Out to Gen 8

    LTO Tapes: Over 100 Million Served

    IT Shops Consume 2 Million LTO Tape Drives

    LTO Tape Drive Sales Increased 15 Percent in 2007

    IBM Rolls Out LTO 4 Tape Drives and Libraries

    IBM Introduces New LTO 3 Drives and Libraries

    LTO 3 Tape Makes Its Way to Market

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags:

    Sponsored by
    WorksRight Software

    Do you need area code information?
    Do you need ZIP Code information?
    Do you need ZIP+4 information?
    Do you need city name information?
    Do you need county information?
    Do you need a nearest dealer locator system?

    We can HELP! We have affordable AS/400 software and data to do all of the above. Whether you need a simple city name retrieval system or a sophisticated CASS postal coding system, we have it for you!

    The ZIP/CITY system is based on 5-digit ZIP Codes. You can retrieve city names, state names, county names, area codes, time zones, latitude, longitude, and more just by knowing the ZIP Code. We supply information on all the latest area code changes. A nearest dealer locator function is also included. ZIP/CITY includes software, data, monthly updates, and unlimited support. The cost is $495 per year.

    PER/ZIP4 is a sophisticated CASS certified postal coding system for assigning ZIP Codes, ZIP+4, carrier route, and delivery point codes. PER/ZIP4 also provides county names and FIPS codes. PER/ZIP4 can be used interactively, in batch, and with callable programs. PER/ZIP4 includes software, data, monthly updates, and unlimited support. The cost is $3,900 for the first year, and $1,950 for renewal.

    Just call us and we’ll arrange for 30 days FREE use of either ZIP/CITY or PER/ZIP4.

    WorksRight Software, Inc.
    Phone: 601-856-8337
    Fax: 601-856-9432
    Email: software@worksright.com
    Website: www.worksright.com

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Sponsored Links

    Connectria:  Need help managing your IBM i? Trust us as an extension of your IT department.
    HelpSystems:  How do you use IBM i? Your peers want to know! Take the survey >
    System i Developer:  Session Grid Posted: RPG & DB2 Summit - Chicago, October 20-22

    IBM i Knowledge Sharing: RSE Keyboard Shortcuts GCC: Bringing More Open Source Software to IBM i

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Volume 25, Number 50 -- October 12, 2015
THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY:

PowerTech
New Generation Software
Midrange Dynamics
Fresche Legacy
WorksRight Software

Table of Contents

  • IBM i Added To Power S822, PurePower Systems
  • IBM i Tech Refresh Reiterates Database Emphasis
  • Capacious LTO Gen 7 Tape Storage Comes To Market
  • BCD And Zend Aim For Expanded PHP Development
  • IBM Mothballs The Last Of The Power7+ Servers

Content archive

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

Recent Posts

  • Why Open Source Is Critical for Digital Transformation
  • mrc Refreshes IBM i Low-Code Dev Tool
  • Unit Testing Automation Hits Shift Left Instead of Ctrl-Alt-Delete Cash
  • Four Hundred Monitor, March 3
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 9
  • Doing The Texas Two Step From Power9 To Power10
  • PHP’s Legacy Problem
  • Guru: For IBM i Newcomers, An Access Client Solutions Primer
  • IBM i 7.1 Extended Out To 2024 And Up To The IBM Cloud
  • Some Practical Advice On That HMC-Power9 Impedance Mismatch

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 © 2021 IT Jungle

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.