Venerable tape storage is still a redoubtable rival to hard disk drives despite setback null
After several months of suspense, updated details of the LTO Ultrium format generation 9 have been published with one big surprise.
The native/compressed capacity of cartridges has dropped to 18TB/45TB; the initial roadmap – which is still available on LTO’s website and was published in 2018 – pegged these numbers 24TB/60TB.
LTO-8 was unveiled in December 2017 while LTO-10 was expected to have a native capacity of 48TB native and 112.5TB compressed, doubling roughly in capacity to reach 192TB/480TB for LTO-12 with the standard 2.5:1 compression.
A 50% increase in capacity is only the second time in nine generations that LTO has not stuck to its “doubling capacity” formula. No details has been provided with regards to the compressed/uncompressed speed for that tape format. We have contacted the LTO Program to find out why that was the case and whether the capacities of future LTO generations will remain the same.
Hard drive competitor
Because of its intrinsic physical properties, tape remains the only real alternative to hard disk drives. An 18TB LTO-9 tape has an areal density of only 12Gb/in^2 compared to 1.02Tb/in^2 (in the case of the Seagate Exos 18 for example) which, in theory means that tape has a lot of room to grow.
“Tape is one of the most reliable and cost-effective storage solutions to retain data while keeping it safe from ransomware and other cyberattacks.” said Chris Powers, Vice President of Collaborative Platforms Development and Big Data, at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Support for LTFS (Linear Tape File System), WORM (Write Once, Read Many) and hardware-based encryption means that the format is in for the long run as the need to archive even more data grows almost exponentially every year.
After several months of suspense, updated details of the LTO Ultrium format generation 9 have been published with one big surprise. The native/compressed capacity of cartridges has dropped to 18TB/45TB; the initial roadmap – which is still available on LTO’s website and was published in 2018 – pegged these numbers…
Recent Posts
- Google now offers ‘web’ search — and an AI opt-out button
- Ayn’s new gaming handheld looks like a PSP, and it might just fill the hole in your heart left by Sony’s best portable
- Google Search is getting a massive upgrade – including letting you search with video
- Google Project Astra hands-on: Full of potential, but it’s going to be a while
- OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is officially leaving
Archives
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011