User Manual

QuickSpecs
HPE StoreEver LTO Ultrium Tape Drives
Product Highlights
Page 7
LTO Ultrium Technology
Linear Tape-Open technology was developed by three leaders in the storage industry - Hewlett
Packard Enterprise, IBM, and Quantum - who brought together their combined expertise in tape
technology to deve
lop an entirely new format based on the best of existing technologies. Because LTO
Ultrium technology was a new format, it required no cumbersome support of legacy formats, so it could
be designed without compromising on reliability or performance. The LTO Program, a consortium of
the three technology provider companies, has developed a well-defined ten-generation roadmap.
Ultrium LTO-3, LTO-4, LTO-5 and LTO-6 tape drive technologies from Hewlett Packard Enterprise
use a linear format of 704 tracks, 896 tracks 1280 tracks and 2176 tracks (respectively), writing sixteen
tracks simultaneously. Ultrium LTO-7 tape drive features a breakthrough in recording technology by
writing thirty-two tracks simultaneously on a linear format of 3584 tracks. The data is written in a
serpentine pattern; the tape reverses direction after each set of tracks is written. This provides higher
density recording, enabling customers to lower costs and increase efficiency by storing more data on a
single tape in an industry standard format.
The LTO standard for backward compatibility is to write back one generation and read back two
generations; therefore:
• First-generation LTO Ultrium drives (HPE Ultrium 230, HPE Ultrium 232) read and write LTO
1 media
• Second-generation LTO Ultrium drives (HPE Ultrium 460, HPE Ultrium 448) read and write
LTO 1 and LTO 2 media.
• Third-generation LTO Ultrium drives (HPE Ultrium 920, Ultrium 960) read and write LTO 2
and LTO 3 media and also read LTO 1 media.
• Fourth-generation LTO Ultrium drives (Ultrium 1840, Ultrium 1760) read and write LTO 3 and
LTO 4 media and also read LTO 2 media.
• Fifth-generation LTO Ultrium drives (Ultrium 3280, Ultrium 3000) read and write LTO 4 and
LTO 5 media and also read LTO 3 media.
• Sixth-generation LTO Ultrium drives (Ultrium 6650, Ultrium 6250) read and write LTO 5 and
LTO 6 media and also read LTO 4 media.
• Seventh-generation LTO Ultrium drives (Ultrium 15000) read and write LTO 6 and LTO 7
media and also read LTO 5 media
As part of the LTO open standard, all HPE tape drives and media offer the same standards of
compatibility with tape drives and media manufactured by other LTO vendors.
LTO data compression (LTO-DC) is an enhanced version of Advanced Lossless Data Compression
(ALDC) hardware compression. Compression is automatically turned off if the compressed data would
cause an overall expansion in data size, hence optimizing the available capacity on the media. Data
compression is also turned off if data is found to be uncompressible; thus, allowing for better data
scans. The system is used in all LTO Ultrium tape drives.
The decision about which tape technology you should buy next should be based on your future, not
your past, investment. Choose the LTO Ultrium format when you need the following advantages:
• Maximum reliability, capacity and performance
• Compatibility with a broad range of operating systems and servers (e.g., a mixed system
environment)
• A legacy-
free technology that uses the best attributes from a wide range of tape technologies
without any compromises for backward compatibility requirements