by Adam Armstrong

IBM Releases 30TB LTO-8 Tape Drive

Today IBM announced the release of the Linear Tape Open Ultrium 8 Tape (LTO-8) drive. The LTO-8 doubles the capacity from the LTO-7 to 30TB (with compression) and IBM states that the new tape drive accelerate data access times while driving the price below half a cent per GB. Spectra Logic is also announcing a pre-purchase program for the LTO-8.

Data is growing at an almost alarming rate. While there are valuable insights to be harvested from this data, it mainly comes from a relatively small portion. A good example would be autonomous cars where there is important insights to avoid accidents, however, there is a massive amount of data generated just from everyday actions that provide little use. All of this data still needs to be stored. While the price of disk is dropping, it still can’t beat tape for price per gigabyte. And the LTO-8 drives the price down even farther.

The LTO-8 essential marks a 65-year culmination of research and commitment from IBM. Not only does the drive have 30TB compressed (12TB native), IBM reports speeds up to 360MB/s. The new LTO-8 also comes with AME and AES-256 standard encryption and Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) functionalities adding an extra layer of security. The new LTO-8 will be compatible with LTO-7 media.

Also today, Spectra Logic launched its pre-payment program for the LTO-8. This program allows for Spectra customers to be the first to get their hands on the new higher capacity tape drives. The LTO-8 will work with Spectra’s BlueScale library software as well as all of Spectra’s tape libraries. Spectra Logic announced their MigrationPass program to provide customers with customized options for their LTO-4, LTO-5 and LTO-6 tape to easily migrate data to the newest LTO tape technology.

Availability

The IBM LTO-8 Drive is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2017. Spectra Logic’s pre-purchase program is available now.

IBM LTO-8

Spectra Logic’s pre-purchase program

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