The LTO Program Technology Provider Companies (TPCs), HP, IBM and Quantum, announced on September 14, 2015 that the LTO Ultrium format generation 7 specifications are now available for licensing by storage mechanism and media manufacturers.
The new LTO generation 7 specifications more than double the tape cartridge capacity from the previous generation, including capacities of up to 6TB per cartridge uncompressed. Large files will also transfer more quickly with tape drive data transfer rates that are up to 300MB per second, which can translate to more than 1 terabyte of data an hour per drive.
“Unprecedented capacity and data transfer rates for LTO generation 7 are made possible by a broad range of technology advancements. The specifications include a doubling of read/write heads in an advanced servo format to help achieve higher track density, which means that more data may be written to the same amount of tape within the cartridge. New formulation advancements provide stronger magnetic properties, helping to increase capacity.”
“LTO generation 7 will continue to include features that were introduced in previous generations, including a partitioning functionality that allows users to present a tape-based file system with the use of LTFS. LTO generation 7 provides continued support for hardware-based encryption and WORM (Write-Once, Read-Many) functionality. This helps ensure a balance of performance, capacity, compatibility and cost control supporting a broad range of security-rich and portable data storage options for backup and archive that are easy to use and address a vast majority of storage needs.”
(for more information: LTO-7-specifications announcement)