LTO Ultrium Generation 7 and 8 Roadmap
As the sheer volume and requirements for data storage
increase, a solid technology roadmap can be very helpful in making tomorrow's
decisions today. The LTO Ultrium roadmap has been one of the foundations of the
LTO program since its inception. This month, the Linear Tape-Open (LTO)
Program Technology Provider Companies -- HP, IBM and Quantum -- announced the
extension of the product roadmap, providing details for two new generations.
Generations 7 and 8 have been added to the LTO product roadmap, calling for
native capacities of 6.4 TB and 12.8 TB, respectively.
Specifications include a larger compression history buffer
which tests show can increase compression to 2.5 to 1. This can allow compressed
cartridge capacities of 8 TB for generation 6, 16 TB for generation 7 and 32 TB
for generation 8, helping users to store more data in less space and address
cost control objectives.
Tape drive data transfer rates are anticipated to increase by
50 percent with each new generation, with plans for generation 6 to provide
native transfer rates up to 210 MB per second, generation 7 up to 315 MB per
second and generation 8 up to 472 MB per second.
Recently, the LTO Program introduced LTO Ultrium
generation specifications, which
nearly doubled capacity to 1.5 terabytes native over generation 4, increased
data transfer rates to 140 MB per second native. Also added was a new dual
partitioning functionality and Linear Tape File System (LTFS), enabling
capabilities that can help enhance file control and space management. With LTFS,
one partition can hold the content index and the other can hold the content,
allowing the tape to be self-describing. The tape can be utilized in a fashion
like disk or other removable media, including directory tree structures.specifications, which
nearly doubled capacity to 1.5 terabytes native over generation 4, increased
data transfer rates to 140 MB per second native. Also added was a new dual
partitioning functionality and Linear Tape File System (LTFS), enabling
capabilities that can help enhance file control and space management. With LTFS,
one partition can hold the content index and the other can hold the content,
allowing the tape to be self-describing. The tape can be utilized in a fashion
like disk or other removable media, including directory tree structures.