Tape Storage

Tape has long been the unsung hero of data storage. In the world of cold storage and archival solutions, LTO (Linear Tape-Open) continues to dominate( alongside IBM’s 3592 format) as the most widely adopted tape standard. With the upcoming LTO-10 generation delivering a raw ca...

With LTO-10 set to launch in under a month, here’s a no-nonsense breakdown of what actually matters. Forget the marketing buzz , these are the key technical points you should know if you work with tape. 1. Higher Native Capacity – 30TB Per Cartridge LTO-10 now offers 30TB of n...

You’ve invested time and money backing up your data to LTO tapes, hard drives, or other digital media but a backup is only as good as its physical protection. By using air-gapped media, you’ve already mitigated the biggest digital threat ; malware. But your backups still face ...

Overland Tandberg has exited the LTO business, leaving many customers struggling to find support and spare parts for their tape drives, autoloaders, and libraries. While standalone drives can be replaced with other brands, autoloaders and libraries are long-term investments, m...

Overland-Tandberg, a prominent name in data storage solutions, is reportedly discontinuing its LTO (Linear Tape-Open) product line—including single drives, autoloaders, libraries, and media—to concentrate on its proprietary RDX (Removable Disk) technology. Background In 2011, ...

The recent breach of European air-gapped government systems shows how supposedly isolated environments can be compromised through USB-based infiltration. This incident highlights the challenges of maintaining true air-gapped security, which led us to write this article. An air...

Fujifilm has announced a price adjustment for their LTO Ultrium data cartridges due to the rising costs of raw materials. Effective July 1, 2024, the price of Fujifilm's LTO Ultrium 9 Data Cartridges should have been increased by 15%. Additionally, older generation LTO-7 and L...

Securing the destruction of data is essential to avoid potential data breaches from disposed media. Two primary methods for data destruction exist: degaussing and shredding, also referred to as physical destruction. We'll explore the key differences, benefits, drawbacks, and f...

IBM unveils 3592 Gen 7 Type F tape, featuring 50TB native capacity, the format's largest. Following Gen1 and Gen2 discontinuation, the tape is exclusive to TS1170 drive, departing from previous cross-gen compatibility. Unlike LTO, IBM highlights guaranteed storage. Tapes, resi...

In March, IBM made an important announcement regarding the discontinuation of the manufacturing of 3592 Gen 1 and Gen 2 Media. As a result, several tape cartridges have been discontinued as follows IBM 18P7534 - 3592 JA 300GB IBM 18P7538 - 3592 JW 300GB WORM IBM 24R0316 - 359...

If you are following the storage business, you may have come across the news of a record-breaking 148.3 Exabyte of compressed capacity sold in LTO tapes this year, which is slightly higher compared to last year. You might also be aware of the less impressive sales numbers for ...

The process of Media Sanitization involves permanently erasing all information on storage media, such as HDDs, SSDs, and magnetic tapes, before they are discarded. Degaussing is one of the most popular ways to achieve this( other options being physical destruction and overwrit...

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) recently introduced a new part number for its LTO tapes that ends with double A instead of A Here is a list of all the new part numbers from HPE. There is no new part number for LTO-4 because HP has stopped production and the tapes can no longe...

Summary Conventional tape solutions have either SAS or FC connectivity and that keeps the Media companies from using them. Thunderbolt3 is The interface that the media companies are most familiar with, and the devices are Thunderbolt3 enabled. An Atto + Quantum Solution enable...

Any LTO tape, Cleaner and Diagnostic media that is used with an autoloader or a library will have an LTO Label for identification of the tape. After identification , the tape is loaded and unloaded from the slots to tape drive for read/write. These LTO labels have human and ma...

If you have a mix of media, e.g. hard drives, tape media and flash, SSD, there is no SINGLE device that can sanitize all of them. The reason is that a degausser can only wipe out magnetic media and has no effect on flash based media like SSDs.On the other hand, a physical dega...

LTO-9 media needs calibration on the first use which can be anywhere between 15 minutes to 2 hours, and this presents an opportunity to sell Pre-calibrated media.

LTO-9 with 18TB Native capacity will put the tape on the same league as Hard drives in terms of capacity, and it looks like it may hit the market next month.

An onsite safe offers many benefits and it may be worth considering instead of opting for an offsite media rotation plan.

Quantum's LTO-9 Pre Purchase program offers you LTO-9 drives exchanged for your LTO-8 drives at a nominal uplift fee.

We look at various packings available in LTO Ultrium tape media and how each one is different from the other

This article covers the Expiry dates , and the limited lifetime warranty of the LTO ultrium tapes. Since there are no expiry dates mentioned on the carton, this always causes confusion on why there is no expiry , and is there actually a date before which the tapes are good to ...

When you see the capacities of LTO ultrium tapes, there is always a pair of Native/Compressed capacity. We see how they are related, what is compression and why you should only consider Native capacity.

When you are backing up your data to the tape media, you are going to rely on it in case of a catastrophe. Its a no brainer that this media itself though rugged needs to be protected when it is in transit and where it is permanently stored.

Data Sanitization has gained more importance in the recent years due to the increasing cases of data thefts and the financial and operation impact it may have on an organization that's impacted.  We look at what it is, why its important and ways to do it.

LTO-8 media soon after its launch was in shortage, due to a patent legal dispute between FujiFilm and Sony the 2 largest manufacturers of LTO media. LTO-8 tape drives were shipped but the media itself wasn't available. The customer could use LTO-7 media in their LTO-8 drive, b...

Its 2020 and tapes are still selling like they were in 2003 when we first started our company. The only thing that has actually changed is that we are not selling so many formats. From selling more than 10 formats( DDS, DLT/SDLT, SLR,QIC,8mm, AIT to name a few) everything has ...

As in February, the LTO-8 media still continues to be in shortage.  So what do you do, you have invested in LTO-8 tape drive already, hoping to make use of the high-density 12TB Native LTO-8 media ( o

Despite what many say, tapes are far from dead. In fact past few years we have seen the tapes converge to 2 Major Formats -  LTO and 3592 media.  Vendors ( LTO consortium for LTO and IBM/Fuji for 3592

This month both QNAP and Synology Announced the availability of new packages built around Machine Learning and AI.QNAP First .QNAP is targeting the Ameatures programmers and data scientists with its Q