ROADMAP
LTO Technology
Linear Tape Open (LTO) Ultrium is a high capacity, single reel tape storage solution developed and continually enhanced by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and Quantum and promoted by the LTO Program. It’s a powerful, scalable and adaptable tape format that helps address the growing demands of data protection. It’s also an open format, licensed by some of the most prominent names in the storage industry to ensure a broad range of compatible tape drives and cartridges.
Delivering Scalability and Growth for Generations
LTO technology is currently in its 10th generation, with a twenty-five-year history of providing secure, reliable storage for Enterprises and organizations across the world. LTO-10 specifications support tape cartridge storage with a compressed capacity of up to 75 TB. In terms of performance, the newest LTO-10 tape drives support data transfer rates of up to 1200 MB/s using a new 32 GB interface, providing 3.6 terabytes of storage performance per hour and per drive.*
New generations have been introduced regularly, featuring higher capacities and transfer rates, along with new features to protect your data and content. LTO specifications for backwards compatibility, up to the 7th generation of the technology, support writing back one generation and reading back two generations. The later 8th and 9th generations of LTO Ultrium tape drives are able to write back and read back one generation. The 10th generation of LTO Ultrium tape drives does not support backwards compatibility due to a redesign of the drive head to eliminate the need for initialization.
*Assuming a 2.5:1 compression achieved with larger compression history buffer available beginning with LTO generation 6 drives.
LTO Ultrium Roadmap
- Ultrium Roadmap (ZIP includes TIFF and PNG formats)
WORM
With the growing importance of regulatory compliance — including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and SEC Commented [NW1]
Rule 17-a-4(f) — organizations need a cost-effective storage medium that can preserve corporate data in a non-rewriteable, non-erasable and unalterable format. LTO technology has write-once, read-many (WORM) capabilities to ensure that your data isn’t overwritten and also help address compliance regulations. It’s designed to provide users with a very cost effective means of storing data in a non-rewriteable format to address compliance regulations.
The key features of LTO WORM are secure encoding mastered on the tape media at the time of manufacture.
- robust algorithms that use LTO Cartridge Memory (CM) in conjunction with the unique factory- written format to prevent tampering.
- ability to append data at the end of a WORM cartridge so users can take full advantage of the tape capacity.
- a distinctive two tone coloured cartridge to distinguish WORM media from rewritable media.
For more information on how LTO Ultrium WORM technology addresses the applicable conditions of SEC Rule 17a – 4(f) read the Cohasset Associates compliance assessment that is included in our resources section.