About LTO Technology

LTO Technology, or Linear Tape-Open Technology, combines the advantages of linear multi-channel bi-directional tape formats in common usage today with enhancements in the areas of timing-based servo, hardware data compression, optimized track layouts and high efficiency error correction code to maximize capacity and performance. It was originally developed jointly by HP, IBM and Certance to provide a clear and viable choice in an increasingly complex array of tape storage options.

LTO is an "open format" technology, which means that users will have multiple sources of product and media. The "open" nature of LTO technology also provides a means of enabling compatibility between different vendors' offerings, meaning your investment is protected with LTO. This technology provides high capacity, reliability and scalability and it boasts a trusted roadmap with a vision for future technology needs.

Features of LTO technology include:

Generation 4
Delivering 1.6TB (2:1 compression) and up to 800 GB native per cartridge, Ultrium format Generation 4 provides data transfer rates of up to 240 MB/second (2:1 compression). Includes WORM and encryption capabilities.

Generation 3
Featuring capacities of 800 GB (2:1 compression) and up to 400 GB native per cartridge, Ultrium format Generation 3 provides data transfer rates of up to 160 MB/second (2:1 compression) for the third generation of the 8-channel version. WORM capability is included.

Generation 2
With a cartridge capacity of up to 400 GB (2:1 compression) and up to 200 GB native, Ultrium format Generation 2 provides data transfer rates of up to 80 MB/second (2:1 compression).

Generation 1
Originally, this technology was released with a capacity of up to 200GB (100GB native, 2:1 compression) and a transfer rate of up to 30MB/sec compressed, 15MB/sec native.

WORM
With the growing importance of regulatory compliance, there is a need for a cost-effective storage medium that can preserve corporate data in a non-rewriteable, non-erasable and unalterable format. Storage administrators continue to seek more powerful tape performance; new technologies such as WORM (Write Once, Read Many) functionality can allow them to meet ever-growing business and regulatory requirements.

Found in Generation 3 and 4 formats (as well as included in the roadmap for Generations 5 and 6), the LTO Program WORM implementation is designed to provide users with a very cost effective means of storing data in a non-rewriteable format to address compliance regulations.

Encryption
LTO Generation 4 uses "AES encryption algorithm, with 256-bit keys, in GCM mode." A shorter way to say it is "256-bit AES in GCM mode" or "AES256-GCM." A generation 4 standard or WORM tape data cartridge is required for encryption.

Encrypting at the tape drive level can provide performance and capacity advantages for administrators. It enables compression before encryption, maximizing tape capacities, and allows high performance during backup. Encrypting using an appliance device in the network can create latencies that affect backup performance, and require management of the additional device.

Encrypting data at tape speed helps to avoid the need for host-based encryption of data - and the concurrent drain on host performance.

No need to worry that encryption will affect drive performance - LTO Generation 4 encrypting tape drives will use GCM for encryption/authentication, and this will allow the drives to achieve high performance, though it will be up to each individual tape drive vendor to select its specific GCM implementation.

LTO Case Studies
LTO™(Ultrium™) has been successfully implemented by our customers to meet their data backup, disaster recovery and archival needs. See Case Studies...

LTO Awards
The Magnum 8x143 LTO tape library was awarded the prestigious Best New Technology Award for storage products at FOSE 2003. Get Details...

LTO Roadmaps
LTO's roadmap continues to double in capacity and speed, as LTO drive technology continues to earn 2:1 market share over DLT & SDLT with its enterprise class reliability. LTO-2 drives read/write to LTO-1 media, further adding to your media return on investment. View Roadmap...

For more about participating LTO companies and LTO technology, please visit www.lto-technology.com.

LTO™(Ultrium™), the latest technology backed by Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Seagate, is a high-performance tape technology offering versatility, reliability and performance.
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Linear Tape-Open, LTO, the LTO Logo, Ultrium and the Ultrium Logo are trademarks of HP, IBM and Quantum in the US and other countries.