Linear Tape-Open (or LTO) is a magnetic tape data storage technology originally developed in the late 1990s as an open standards alternative to the proprietary magnetic tape formats that were available at the time. Seagate, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM initiated the LTO Consortium, which directs development and manages licensing and certification of media and mechanism manufacturers. The standard form-factor of LTO technology goes by the name Ultrium, the original version of which was released in 2000 and could hold 100 GB of data in a single cartridge. The most recent version was released in 2007 and can hold 800 GB in the same size cartridge. Since 2002, LTO has been the best selling "super tape" format and is widely used with small and large computer systems, especially for backup. Its popularity can be attributed to both the innovative technology developed as well as the attractive pricing.
LTO Drive
HP StorageWorks LTO-4 Ultrium 1840 Tape Drive represents HP's fourth-generation of LTO tape drive technology positioned as HP's first tape drive capable of storing up to 1.6 TB per cartridge while providing hardware-based encryption to enable greater levels of security and unprecedented performance.
Data hardware encryption using AES 256-bit provides easy-to-enable security to protect the most sensitive data and prevent unauthorized access of tape cartridges. By using LTO-4 Ultrium 1840 encryption, not only is data fully capable of being compressed therefore maximizing capacity, encrypted backups are completed without a loss in performance.
Capable of data transfer rates up to 240 MB/sec, HP’s exclusive Data Rate Matching feature further optimizes performance by matching host system speed to keep drives streaming and enabling the fastest tape performance in the industry.
The Ultrium 1840 provides investment protection with full read and write support with LTO-3 media, and the ability to read LTO-2 cartridge. By doubling the capacity of previous generation Ultrium drives, HP customers now require fewer data cartridges to meet their storage needs, significantly reducing IT costs and increasing ROI.
Support for Write-Once, Read-Many (WORM) media allows customers to implement a cost-effective solution to secure, manage, and archive data to meet stringent compliance regulations.
The LTO-4 Ultrium 1840 Tape Drive provides both U320 SCSI and 3Gbps SAS interfaces and supports the industry’s most comprehensive list of compatible hardware and software platforms. Each drive option includes HP Data Protector Express Software Single Server Edition backup/recovery software and the HP Data Protector Express Software Bare Metal Disaster Recovery option, as well as support for HP One-Button Disaster Recovery (OBDR) and HP StorageWorks Library and Tape Tools (L&TT).
The new HP StorageWorks LTO-4 Ultrium 1840 SAS Tape Drive models provides a 3Gb/sec SAS interface allowing direct connect to SAS-based servers.
