So I was dumbstruck (“a first”, some might say) when I recently read a commentary which chided the LTO consortium for “only” offering 1.5TB* native capacity on LTO-5. Seriously…

 

Meantime the analysts and customer feedback which we’ve received confirms that LTO-5 delivers an excellent blend of tape capacity, performance and feature innovation as it has done since the launch of LTO-1 a decade ago.

 

At Spectra we already knew that LTO-5 would be well received. The popularity of our unique LTO-5 pre-purchase program gave us good insight into the customer expectations. 

 

With each LTO generation doubling capacity (yes, give or take), improving throughput (1TB/hr compressed transfer rate for LTO-5) and providing useful management features (e.g. WORM, encryption, Media Partitioning) - our customers were eager to buy on the promise of future LTO-5 delivery. 

 

Back to the future and we’re delivering LTO-5 to our existing and new T-Series library customers. 

 

There are some deliberate synergies between LTO-5 and Spectra’s T-Series libraries. The increased capacity of LTO-5 combined with Spectra’s uniquely high density T-Series libraries relieves pressure on space-constrained datacenters now, and allows customers to plan confidently for data growth.

Low power and green data storage is synonymous with Spectra’s LTO tape solutions: T-Series libraries are the lowest power tape libraries, allowing customers to minimize their datacenter power budgets and manage their emissions.

 

For Spectra it’s all about customer-focused innovation. LTO-5 presents an excellent platform for Spectra to continue our unique approach to tape management with our BlueScale architecture and to extend the role of tape with new data management applications. 

 

With the trusted LTO roadmap now published to LTO-8, Spectra customers can be confident of continued development of high capacity, high performance, high reliability and cost-effective storage solutions. A trusted LTO roadmap and Spectra’s commitment to innovation: synergy at its best.

 

Now, aren’t we glad that our arithmetic is so much simpler for storage planning with LTO-5 at 1.5TB. Try multiplying by 1.6 when you’re next sizing storage needs…1.5 TB native capacity is good news for those of us who no longer carry slide rules or keep a pencil behind our ear. Now for LTO-6 we can expect 3.2TB native capacity…perhaps I will need my slide rule after all ;-)

 

*LTO-5 capacity was revised, and published, last year to be 1.5TB native. I’ve yet to speak to a customer or analyst who was either surprised or disappointed by the minor revision.