Trend

LTO 2: an established benchmark now

With several global manufacturers discontinuing LTO 1, and projecting LTO 2 as a value product, the Indian market is increasingly adopting the latter version as a standard, finds Shivani Shinde.

In India, the tape drive market is characterised by a large base of DAT tapes. According to IDC estimates, the DAT tape sales for 2004 was 26,600.

However, with increasing amount of data and the need to take faster backups, the Indian market has moved to options such as SDLT and LTO.

Though LTO was introduced just a few years ago, it is the most preferred backup tape. To try and keep up with LTO, Quantum has come out with a clearer road map for SDLT. It recently announced the launch of DLT-V4, particularly aimed at the small and medium-sized businesses.

LTO 2 moving up

Third-generation LTO tapes have already hit the market. As Jim Simon, Director, Marketing, Quantum Asia-Pacific says, “LTO 2 is no longer a new product of LTO but has become a value product of LTO. Many manufacturers have discontinued the use of LTO 1. The LTO 2 has become a standard.”

The second-generation Ultrium specification calls for a native capacity of 200 gigabytes (using new MP++ media) and a native data transfer rate in the 20 megabyte per second to 40 megabyte per second range. As with the first-generation LTO drives, the second-generation drives use a 2:1 data compression ratio. Similarly, the second-generation LTO Ultrium drives use an eight-channel method of recording, which was the case with first-generation LTO drives.

The second-generation drives use media that is of the same length as the first-generation media, but the drives have a faster average tape speed. Second-generation Ultrium drives have the flexibility to read from and write to a cartridge in the previous format. According to Phil Sargeant, Vice-president Research, Storage, Gartner says, “The data transfer rate is one feature that the technology provider companies (TPCs) use in differentiating their LTO 2 drives from each other.”

LTO Ultrium 2 features backward read and write capabilities with the first-generation product, a native storage capacity with 200 GB, transfer speeds topping out at 40 Mbps within a single-reel tape cartridge designed for backup, restore and archiving applications.

Tandberg Data was the first non-TPC licencee to develop and introduce an LTO- compatible drive. Says Niraj Mandal, Senior Sales Manager India (West and South), Tandberg, “If you sideline the small businesses that still use the DLT version and look at the medium and large enterprises, LTO is the most popular tape technology.” He believes that the Indian market has been quick in accepting the LTO tape in general and LTO 2 in particular. The popularity of LTO 2 has been due to its cost effectiveness vis-à-vis LTO 1. The other reason is the rate of data transfer or the back up time which is faster than in SDLT. For instance, an LTO 2 full height has a transfer rate of 252 GB per hour and a LTO 2 half-height allows 173 GB per hour of data rate.

According to an IDC 2005 report, the country’s LTO shipment is valued at $6.65 million for 2004. It is expected to increase to $6.90 million in 2005. Compared to SDLT, the LTO 2 tapes are also cost-effective. The LTO 2 half height costs approximately Rs 1,10,000 whereas SDLT 320 would cost Rs 1,60,000.

Avijit Basu, Country Manager, StorageWorks Division, Hewlett Packard India, cites IDC when he says that LTO has gained market share in the Asia Pac (excluding Japan) region from DLT/SDLT in the mid-range tape drive segment and it is expected to continue dominating the mid-range tape drive market due to its high data transfer rate and reliability. “LTO offers good dollar-per gigabyte cost efficiency and is now considered acceptable for most applications, except in high-transactional environments. In India too, LTO 2 has been steadily gaining acceptance and we expect the trend to continue,” adds Basu.

The winner is….

The popularity of LTO 2 is due to its cost-effectiveness vis-à-vis LTO 1. The other reason is the rate of data transfer or the backup time which is faster than in SDLT Niraj Mandal Senior Sales Manager India (West and South) Tandberg

If the figures from Gartner are taken into consideration for 2004, the LTO tape is the clear winner in terms of the total units shipped. For 2004, LTO registered 351,598 units globally, whereas SDLT had shipped 103,856 units or 22.8 percent.

In India, the usage of LTO over SDLT is showing an upward trend. The reasons vary from better performance, faster backup to administrative issues. As Jim Simon, Director, Marketing, Quantum Asia-Pacific says, “Both the technologies are good. The criterion of selection would depend on the type of standardisation. For capacity, SDLT is the answer, for performance, LTO.”

The other reason for higher acceptability for LTO has been its open tape architecture and a clearer road map for growth. “Since it has a open tape architecture it is multi-sourced and has multiple manufacturers. Besides, it’s a recent development and thus an improvement on the DLT technology,” remarks Vijay Pradhan, India Country Manager, StorageTek.

The success of these technologies depends on the format that an organisation has started with. Avijit Basu explains that the evolution of an industry standard in LTO technology has also reinforced the role of tape in data back-up. LTO technology was developed to establish a new open format specification for high-capacity, high-performance tape storage products, tailored for midrange and network server environments. High-speed and dynamic data rate matching with high-capacity cartridge makes it cost effective and simple to use.

Echoes Chris Wening, Director, Asia-Pacific Sales, Exabyte Corporation, “LTO Technology, combines the advantages of linear multi-channel, bi-directional tape formats in common usage today with enhancements in the areas of timing, hardware data compression, high efficiency to maximise capacity and performance.”

While explaining the Exabyte LTO Technology sixth-generation roadmap (Three generations are currently available), Wening says that speed and capacity is expected to double with each Ultrium format. The Ultrium format in the third-generation provides users with outstanding data and investment protection because of its capability to read-and-write the second-generation cartridges in the Ultrium second-generation format.

What’s in store

According to IDC, the total LTO shipments to India stood at 1,465 units in CY 2004. Analysts say that almost 70 percent of the market will consist of LTO users. Since LTO 2 is now considered as the standard for LTO technology it would not be far-fetched to say that of the 70 percent that is being predicted most of it would be accounted for by LTO 2.

Basu believes that an increased adoption of LTO 2 and LTO 3 drives will happen as organisations move up the maturity cycle and invest in the latest technologies to back up and protect their data. He further adds that the new 400 and 900 GB LTO drives help to store all data in single cartridge to make backup and restore a simple procedure. High-speed and dynamic data rate matching with high-capacity cartridge makes it cost-effective.

Where LTO stands to gain is from organisations that need standardisation. Today, data is under threat and its worth goes beyond just revenue loss. It affects the reputation of a company. Added to this is compliance with government regulations.

Analysts feel that in the coming years, LTO certainly has an edge. One of the reasons for this is the open architecture that LTO technology has, whereas SDLT is proprietary to Quantum. Now, IBM, Seagate and HP are collaborating on the technology front and coming up with variety of products for the customer to choose from.

However, SDLT has managed to keep its share of loyal customers though its market share is just about 23 percent. The future would be a choice between performance and capacity. Quantum with a clear road map is gearing itself to create niche product categories for its SDLT technology. Not only this, the company is already on a clearer roadmap with the acquisitions of Benchmark and Centrance. According to market sources, Quantum now controls LTO, DLT and DDS technology and is geared to broaden the tape drive fight.

On the growth prospects of tape drives, Sargeant says, “Between 2003 and 2008 we expect a compounded annual growth of around 9 percent for Small Form Factor tape drives (which includes LTO and SDLT).”

shivani@expresscomputeronline.com