The LTO ( Linear Tape Open ) tapes came in two forms ‘Accelis’ and ‘Ultrium’. The Accelis is 8 mm tape, dual reel cartridge. It was actually developed in 1997, and the purpose was the fast access to data, that loads at the midpoint of the tape to minimize access time. IBM were the pioneer in this tape format by introducing (short-lived) 3570 Magstar MP product. The real-world performance of Accelis does not exceed that of Ultrium tape format.
Ultrium is 1/2" tape, single reel cartridge. In the mid 1980s, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) and IBM (International Business Machines) converted this kind of tape into a single reel, enclosed cartridge. IBM named their cartridge 3480. LTO Ultrium was developed as a replacement for DLT(Digital Linear Tape). This development made possible for robotic tape library vendors to convert their DLT libraries into LTO. The Ultrium drive reads data from a cartridge in its own generation and at least the two prior generations, and writes data to a cartridge in its own generation and to a cartridge from the immediate prior generation in the prior generation format.
LTO tape products and versions are: LTO 1, LTO 2, LTO 3, LTO 4, LTO Barcode Labels, LTO Cartridge Memory Reader, LTO Cleaning Cartridge and LTO Empty Cases. LTO 5 and LTO 6 under development and will be available in future.
LTO-1 ( 100/200 GB)
Released in September 2000
LTO-1 was the developed by Seagate, HP and IBM as a contender for the market that was then dominated by DLT tapes (owned by Quantum).
LTO-1 has 100 GB native capacity and compressed rate of 200 GB
Has a transfer rate of up to 15 MB/s.
Uses RLL 1,7 (Run length limited)
Tape thickness is 8.9 μm, and tape length is 609 m.
LTO-1 has 384 tracks.
Wraps per band are 12 and linear density (bits/mm) is 4880.
Bit density is low, compared to second and third generations.
LTO-1 tapes have a quick to market design and are made by “easy” technology.
The purpose of this was that the LTO tape would gain a foothold in the linear magnetic tape market.
The maximum capacity is 100 GB and it uses the same data compression technique as used in AIT tapes.
LTO Ultrium is one of the most popular forms of tape backup and as it is pretty much a drop in replacement for DLTs, therefore it is easy for you to upgrade your tape library from DLT to LTO 1 Ultrium format.
For further details and online order, visit www.tape4backup.com
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