LTO Gen 6 Licenses Now Available

June 28, 2011 Alex Woodie

The companies behind the Linear Tape Open (LTO) format announced last week that they have begun selling licenses the LTO Gen 6 format. While the release of the final LTO Gen 6 specifications won’t happen for at least 12-24 months, the LTO group says giving licensees a sneak peak into the development of the LTO Gen 6 format will allow them to enhance their own products.

It’s been just over a year since the companies behind the LTO program–IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Quantum–extended the roadmap for the LTO Ultrium half-inch tape format out to eight generations. LTO Gen 6 is expected to carry a native capacity of 3.2 TB, a native data transfer rate of 210 megabytes per second, and 2.5-to-1 compression. By comparison, the current LTO Gen 5 tape drives, which were officially unveiled in January 2010, offered 1.5 TB of native capacity, a native data transfer rate of 140 MBps, and 2-to-1 compression.

But there might be some unexpected goodies in LTO Gen 6 to sweeten the deal, as LTO program officials hinted might occur during an interview with IT Jungle earlier this year. LTO Gen 5 included the linear tape file system, which allows a tape drive to be self-identifying and allow customers to use it as a giant memory stick on Windows and Linux servers.

What could be in the LTO Gen 6 cookie jar? Only the LTO group members and its licensees will know. There are several different license packages in the LTO program, including basic packages that just include LTO format specifications, and more enhanced packages that provide the specs as well as the license to manufacture LTO tape drives and media. More information is available at www.ultrium.com.