Trend

LTO3: the next leap ahead

The tape standard offers double the capacity with backward compatibility, finds Shivani Shinde.

The principal reason for LTO3’s success is its ability to address huge capacity and support faster transfers. Another reason has been its open architecture and roadmap. For instance, licences for the second generation Ultrium format were made available in April 2002, and the first drive based on Ultrium 2 became available from HP in November 2002. Three years on, the third generation of Ultrium tape is out and is well accepted.

LTO3 journey

The LTO3 specification calls for drives to have 400 gigabyte native capacity (800 gigabytes compressed) and native data transfer rates in the 40 to 80 Mbps range (80 to 160 Mbps compressed). Backward compatibility with second generation Ultrium cartridges (read and write) and first generation Ultrium cartridges (read only) is also a requirement.

The LTO TPCs announced an addendum to the third generation specifications to permit WORM capability to be built into LTO3 drives and media. The WORM capability is achieved through combining algorithms in the Cartridge Memory (CM) with the encoding of unique WORM attributes in the servo tracks down the length of the tape. This low-level encoding is mastered on the tape media at the time of manufacture. A Unique Cartridge Identity (UCI) is also encoded with all data sets written to tape. This UCI logically combines the identity of the CM with the physical media.

According to Phil Sergeant, Vice-president, Research, Storage, Gartner, “Certance was the first to announce a product based on the LTO3 specification. On August 16, 2004, the company announced its CL 800 LTO3 tape drive with a data transfer rate of 68 Mbps native (136 Mbps compressed). Similarly, IBM announced its LTO3 drive in November 2004. IBM’s drive, which is sold directly to end users and through the IBM reseller channels, is called the IBM TotalStorage 3580 Tape Drive.”

Models for the OEM channel are called the T800 and T800F. HP’s LTO3 drive, called the HP StorageWorks Ultrium 960, hit the market in December 2004. Both third generation LTO drives from IBM and HP have native data transfer rates of 40 Mbps. HP announced the WORM feature when it launched its LTO3 drives.

Says Avijit Basu, Country Manager, StorageWorks Division, HP India, “We expect increased adoption of LTO2 and LTO3 drives as organisations move up the maturity cycle and invest in the latest technologies to backup and protect their data.”

Need to grow

Speed and capacity are expected to double with each generation of the Ultrium format Chris Wening Director Asia-Pacific Sales Exabyte

There already exists a map for generation six Ultrium tapes, the reason being that companies are looking at faster and better means for backup. Many organisations are going in for online backup which happens during busy hours; this means that tape backup has to keep pace.

It also implies that a high-end library should have native fibre connect, manage mixed media, etc. The tape library should be as intelligent as the disk array today—that is the reason LTO3 was launched.

Due to its open architecture, non-TPC licencees such as Exabyte and Tandberg are also coming out with faster and newer versions of LTO backup. As Chris Wening, Exabyte’s Director for Asia-Pacific Sales points out, Exabyte too has an LTO Technology 6 generation roadmap (three generations are currently available). He believes that speed and capacity is expected to double with each generation of the Ultrium format.

Recently, Exabyte has also launched an LTO3 tape autoloader. The company’s LTO3 tape autoloader Magnum 1x7 offers the reliability of ExaBotics—the company’s patented and award-winning robotics systems—that it says are ideal for SMBs and departmental installations.

Advantage LTO3

Analysts feel that LTO3 would be a better bet for data centres and segments that have regulatory issues and mammoth data storage needs. As Niraj Mandal, Senior Sales Manager India (West and South), Tandberg, says, “LTO3 is certainly for those with high-end servers who use NAS (connecting through a gateway) with speeds that are higher than LTO2.” Tandberg’s 840LTO based on LTO3 introduced three months ago has already found some takers.

For organisations which have high volumes of data (like banks and data centres) and need to comply with regulations such as Basel II, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA and new SEC guidelines, LTO3 is certainly effective. However, for those who have distributed data networks, LTO3 will not be as effective as LTO2.

This does not mean that organisations using SDLT or other tape technologies will shift. For users of SDLT, Quantum is coming up with the latest version of SDLT tapes—SDLT V4.

shivani@expresscomputeronline.com