Tape Manufacturers to Support LTO-5 Technology and the Ultrium Format Capacity, Performance, and Feature Enhancements

The Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Program Technology Provider Companies -- HP, IBM Corporation and Quantum Corp -- today announced that five companies -- Fujifilm Corporation, Hitachi Maxell Ltd., Imation Corp., Sony Corporation, and TDK Corporation -- have completed interchange compliance testing and achieved LTO Ultrium format generation 5 compliance. The successful completion of this testing now permits these companies to use the LTO Ultrium format generation 5 trademark on their LTO tape products.

"Successful compliance testing by licensees is an important step in the process for bringing product to the marketplace," said Cindy Grossman, VP, Tape and Archive Systems, IBM Corp. "The LTO Ultrium format is the data protection tape technology of choice because it provides a powerful, scalable, adaptable open format and the new generation 5 specifications call for exciting features to address the growing needs of various customer segments.

The LTO Program requires that all licensees pass a series of compliance verification involving rigorous data interchangeability testing prior to being issued a license to use the LTO Ultrium trademark. Compliance testing of LTO products is performed annually to confirm that all manufacturers are adhering to the Ultrium format specifications. Buyers seeking Ultrium format-compliant products look for the LTO Ultrium format trademark logo on both tape drives and data cartridges when reviewing backup and archiving solutions.

The LTO Program recently released specifications and new feature details for its upcoming generation 5, calling for a storage capacity increase up to 3TB (assuming 2:1 compression) --  nearly doubling the capacity from 800GB to 1.5TB uncompressed over the previous generation -- and transfer rates of up to 280MB per second (assuming 2:1 compression).

The LTO Ultrium format generation 5 plans include new partitioning functionality enabling capabilities that can help enhance file control and space management, addressing the growing needs of marketplace segments such as Rich Media. More information on this highly- anticipated technology will be forthcoming later this year.The LTO Ultrium format generation 5 drives are designed with backwards-compatible read-and-write capability with the Ultrium format generation 4 cartridges, and backward read capabilities with generation 3 cartridges, helping to protect investments and ease implementation.