LTO Technical Details

August 31, 2008 — 585

LTO (Linear Tape-Open) is a tape standard developed by HP, IBM, and Seagate as a competitor to DLT.

A standard LTO tape stores data in 384 data tracks, which are in turn divided into 4 data bands of 96 tracks each. The data bands are filled one-at-a-time, in a linear fashion.

LTO tapes contain 4KB of non-volatile memory; this storage space contains data about the tape and can be read without the time required to read the magnetic tape itself.

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Tapes: DLT

August 22, 2008 — 585

DLT  – stands for Digil Linear Tape. Its a format of back up tapes that was invented by DEC, though later taken over by Quantum. The DLT format has now been superceed by the S-DLT – or Super DLT.

Below is a Table of tape sizes – from Wiki

Name Formats (GB) Color Supported by (ro=read only)
CompacTape I 0.1 Gray TK50/70
CompacTape II 0.3 Gray TK70
DLTtape III 2.6, 6, 10 Light brown DLT260/600, DLT2000/2000XT/4000/7000
DLTtape IIIXT 15 White DLT2000XT/4000/7000/8000
DLTtape IV 20, 35, 40 Dark brown DLT4000/7000/8000, SDLT220/320 (ro)
Cleaning Tape III 20 cleans Beige DLT2000/2000XT/4000/7000/8000
SDLTtape I 110, 160 Dark green SDLT220/320, SDLT600 (ro), DLT-S4 (ro)
SDLTtape II 300 Dark blue SDLT600, DLT-S4 (ro)
DLTtape S4 800 Dark purple DLT-S4
SDLT Cleaning Tape 20 cleans Light gray SDLT220/320/600, DLT-S4
DLTtape VS1 80, 160 Ivory/Black VS160, DLT-V4, SDLT600 (ro)
DLT VS Cleaning Tape 20 cleans Brown DLT1, DLT-VS80
DLT VS160 Cleaning Tape 20 cleans Light gray DLT-VS160, DLT-V4
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Tapes: LTO

August 22, 2008 — 585

LTO stands for Linear Tape Open. Its a tape format that designed by Seagate, HP, and IBM

LTO tapes are a popular tape format, not least because they can store a huge amount of data. Currently LTO 4 tapes (the largest available) can store up to 1.6 terra bytes. Currently there are four different LTO tapes, though LTO 5 and LTO 6 are on the drawing board.

LTO-1

  • Size: 100 GB (native) 200 GB (compressed)
  • Media Colour: Black, except HP which produces a blue tape
  • Release Date: September 2000.
  • Speed: 20 Mb/s

LTO-2

  • Size: 200 GB (native) 400 GB (compressed)
  • Media Colour: Purple, except HP which produce a dark red tape
  • Release Date: February 2003.
  • Speed: 40 Mb/s

LTO-3

  • Size: 400 GB (native) 800 GB (compressed)
  • Media Colour: Slate-Blue or Blue-Gray, except HP which produce a yellow one.
  • Release Date: November 2004
  • Max Speed:80 MB/s

Note: Introduced WORM feature.

LTO-4

  • Size: 800 GB (native) 1600 GB (compressed)
  • Colour: Green/Teal or Blue-Green
  • Release Date: May 2007
  • Max Speed:120 MB/s.

Note: Now has a feature of 256-bit AES-GCM drive level encryption.

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