LTO-9 cartridge holds 60 TB of data (with compression)
Spectra Logic, a company specializing in magnetic tape storage systems, expects to begin shipping LTO-9 drives and cartridges at the end of this year.
Deliveries of LTO-9 drives and cartridges are due to begin later this year.
Already, the manufacturer has opened a pre-order program, which provides an exciting opportunity: how much the customer will order LTO-9 drives, how much he will immediately receive LTO-8 drives to use them before receiving LTO-9 drives. Besides, of course, having made a reservation, you can count on receiving LTO-9 drives in priority order as soon as they become available. The program will run until December 2020.
As for LTO-9, the drives will be equipped with an 8 Gb / s Fiber Channel interface. They will support SDLC data compression and AES encryption with a 256-bit key. Single and multiple recording is available. One cartridge holds 24 TB of data without compression, or 60 TB with compression, that is, twice as much as LTO-8.
Recall that LTO technology was developed jointly by IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Certance (currently Quantum) in 1998. The first drives and cartridges appeared on the market in 2000, and now the eighth generation equipment and media are available. Currently, LTO-8 technology is licensed by IBM, Fujifilm, and Sony. The first company produces drives, the other two – cartridges. Technology development plans include the 10th, 11th, and 12th generation. LTO-10 cartridges will hold 48 TB without compression or 120 TB with compression. The LTO-10 drive will be able to provide data transfer rates of 1100 MB / s and 2750 MB / s, respectively.
LTO benefits include low storage costs. Over the past years, more than 4.4 million drives, and more than 225 million cartridges of different generations have been produced.
