IBM LTO Tape Drive

IBM® LTO-10 Tape Drive incorporates the latest generation of Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology, delivering even higher capacity than the previous generation.

In addition to backup, LTO Tape Drive is designed to help your business handle the growing data demands of modern tape use cases like cloud computing, media and entertainment, digital video surveillance, active file archiving and, of course, for backup archive.

By providing a physical storage capacity of up to 75 TB per cartridge (with 2.5:1 compression), LTO-10 Tape Drive is an excellent tape storage solution for medium-sized and enterprise businesses requiring backup and low-cost, archival storage of data.

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Benefits

Reduced storage costs

Gain 66% more storage capacity in the same footprint. Store up to 75 TB (compressed) per cartridge — better capacity than previous-generation LTO cartridges.

Simplify data management

Make tape-based data easy to access. IBM Storage Archive™ supports the tape-oriented IBM Linear Tape File System™ (IBM LTFS).

Help meet compliance requirements

Enhance security and compliance with data encryption and Write Once Read Many (WORM) support.

Increase flexibility

LTO tape drives are available in Full Height and Half Height form factors, providing flexibility for addressing a variety of needs from small to enterprise business.

Empower your users

Integration with IBM Storage Protect™ allows users to create, manage and archive — including concurrent copies of content, plus active, inactive and offsite content.

Easily integrate

Cross-platform, open systems support helps integrate high-capacity tape backups with a variety of systems running Microsoft Windows or UNIX operating systems.

Cyber protection

IBM Tape drives offer AES-256 bit data encryption at-rest and Post-Quantum Cryptography certificates for Private Key Infrastructure (PKI) protecting data privacy and securing data from cyber-attacks or accidental exfiltration.

Features

Fast data transfer

The LTO-10 tape drive boasts an uncompressed data transfer rate of up to 400 MBps with 2.5:1 compression. Data transfer rate may vary depending on host usage and interface utilization -- up to 1000 MBps for 32 Gbps FC and 12 Gbps SAS interface -- for full-high (FH) tape drives.

Simplified access and management

IBM Storage Archive™ helps simplify LTO-10 Tape Drive access and management by enabling text-based file tagging for more intuitive searches of drive content. IBM Storage Archive supports the tape-oriented LTFS and provides a GUI to the tape drive’s contents. These features help make tape-based data as easy to find and access as disk- or flash-based data. By making tape easy and intuitive, Storage Archive LTFS opens the door to new uses and applications for LTO Ultrium tape.

Flexible network integration

The LTO-10 tape drive with 32 Gbps FC interface offers two FC ports and one Ethernet port facilitating integration into existing modern SAN infrastructures by offering a flexible network integration for attaching to 32Gb and 64Gb networks without special connectivity requirements reducing SAN infrastructure costs. The 12 Gbps SAS drive offers two SAS ports and one Ethernet port.

Maximized performance and enhanced security

IBM Storage Archive creates an efficient “data footprint” that dynamically stores every bit of data at the optimal cost, helping maximize performance and ensuring security. IBM Storage Archive enables storage of digital assets for the long term, so assets can be referenced and monetized for years to come.

File-level access to tape data

The LTO Ultrium 10 provides partitioning support, which, in conjunction with IBM Storage Archive, provides users with file-level access to tape data. This support helps users quickly locate and update information.

Interchangeable Ultrium 10 tape media

LTFS tape format is designed to be interchangeable among compatible LTO tape drives and supported operating systems, so administrators will not have to worry about hardware and software compatibility. With LTFS, managers can quickly access, store or archive files on Ultrium 10 tape cartridges and transport files to another LTO-10 Tape Drive, and from different locations, in a very easy-to-use format.

Data encryption

The LTO Ultrium 10 technology is also designed to natively support data encryption, with core hardware encryption and decryption capabilities resident in the LTO Ultrium 10 tape drive itself. IBM LTO Ultrium 10 technology sets up the stage for enhanced security required on modern IT environments by including Post-Quantum Cryptography certificates for advanced security key exchange.

High capacity and operational simplicity

LTO-10 Tape Drive supports the LTO Consortium compression specification for LTO Ultrium 10, offering up to 75 TB of data storage per cartridge (30 TB native).

Enhanced retrieval times with open RAO

Recommended Access Order (RAO), available on LTO-10, enables tape control applications to accelerate the retrieval of a certain number of user data segments (UDSs) – files or blocks of data from a single tape cartridge, thereby reducing the seek time between them. RAO improves random access time to data segments on tape by as much as 86%, when compared with retrievals of the same data segments linearly.