BENEFITS

The amount of data and content being produced is growing in leaps and bounds. With high capacity and reliability, LTO tape can provide years of protection at a much lower cost than other storage solutions. And with LTFS, it’s easier to view, archive and share your files than ever before.

THE SOLUTION FOR DATA

LTO-8 tape technology delivers high storage capacity, blazing fast transfer rates, easy-to-use functionality and steadfast reliability. Find key facts Here, and additional information below.

LOW COST

As the amount of data your company creates continues to increase, a cost-effective and dependable solution can often be hard to find. Limited budgets mean that data storage managers need to get creative with how they tackle their storage needs. Look no further – LTO technology offers an ultimate solution.LTO technology is the lowest cost for storage in the foreseeable future in the data storage market. Initial cost isn’t the only benefit however, as LTO tape continues to offer the best cost per gigabyte over the entire life span of the data when compared to other options.

When it comes to long-term archiving, storage managers have to think about a lot of factors: equipment, media, maintenance, energy costs and floor space. Since costs for each can be significant, it’s crucial that data capacity is maximized at every opportunity while minimizing overheads.

ESG found that there is an impressive 577% return on investment when utilizing a tape solution for long-term data protection.* ESG also reported that LTO tape is thriving and has a bright future in organizations of all sizes. Their overall conclusion was that the more data that can be preserved on tape, the lower the overall total cost of ownership (TCO).

Now you can use the money that you would be pouring into another storage solution, where your business needs it most.

* Determined by comparing TCO of LTO to a present mode of operation of all-disk storage over ten year period, when accounting for avoided costs and net-new economic improvements. Source: ESG report “Analyzing the Economic Value of LTO Tape for Long-Term Data Retention,” February 2016.

HIGH CAPACITY

Storage innovation is driving the cost per storing a byte of data down, meaning more data can be stored for less. But innovation isn’t limited to sheer raw capacity being increased. In fact, when you look at retaining data, you need to consider many different ways to look at storage capacity.Advancements in data compression also are part of the picture. Depending on the type of data, compression can help to drive an increase in storage capacity available. Video and music files do not compress due to the random nature of the data. But for other types of data, you can take advantage of the LTO technology’s 2:5:1 compression capabilities. The LTO compression algorithm is completely lossless – meaning it will compress data by default only if the data can be successfully compressed. For example, the “native” capacity of an LTO-8 tape is 12 Terabytes (TB), but it achieves 30 TB with compression.

That’s a big advantage when you compare LTO tape with other technologies. SSD typically provides less than 2 TB of native capacity. That’s expensive when you consider cost per gigabyte. Hard disk drives today can offer up to 8 TB of native low cost storage, but it’s still more expensive when you consider cost and the need to raid your systems for data protection purposes.

SECURE,

OFFLINE STORAGE

The value of data is increasing, but so is the cost of protecting this data.Data stored online is susceptible to compromise and vulnerable to corruption threats. It can be accidental, such as a natural disaster destroying a data center, a system error corrupting a file, someone errantly erasing a folder or a RAID backing up corrupted data.

Increasingly, data is compromised by more nefarious methods. Viruses can corrupt a file, hackers can steal trade secrets or an employee can sabotage a company’s most critical data.

In fact, three out of every four businesses have experienced a data disaster of major business disruptions that exposed them to potential damages. Almost daily we hear of data being compromised that can have serious negative consequences for those entrusted to protect that data.

One bank lost their backup tapes with sensitive data from more than 12 million customers. A software error corrupted records on both the primary and replicated disk for a major email provider. A virus infected a university computer, exposing the personal information of students.

That’s where LTO tape can save the day. Tape provides offline protection, isolating the data from software bugs that can occur during continuous disk-to-disk backup.

Ransomware. LTO technology is the only solution that offers a true “air gap”. Having a backup completely offline protects your data from both viruses as well as ransomware threats.

Encryption. LTO technology offers hardware-based data encryption (LTO-4 drives and newer), which provides powerful tape-level algorithm that doesn’t affect compression, performance and capacity.

WORM. LTO technology also provides for a write-once, read many option (LTO-3 tapes and newer) that stores data in a non-rewritable format. This further protects data from being errantly overwritten and also helps to address compliance regulations.

Don’t let your most important data go unprotected. LTO technology provides some of the best options available to ensure that your data is there when you need it.

OPEN STANDARD

Proprietary storage systems don’t give you a lot of options when you want to transfer data. They can lock you into a system that can be more expensive and lacking innovation.That’s why LTO specifications are open format, designed for interoperability from among multiple competing vendors. These vendors submit their products to compatibility testing to ensure vendor functionality so that an LTO tape from one vendor can be used on a drive provided by another. It’s become the de-facto standard for medium-tier storage needs.

Most importantly, the LTO format ensures that your investment today will continue to pay off for years to come. LTO specifications provide backwards compatibility to read/write with previous generations. LTO drive generation 1-7 are able to read tapes from two generations prior and are able to write to tapes from the prior generation. LTO-8 drives can read and write to LTO-7 drives. With a published roadmap, LTO technology allows you to better forecast how to address your future technology as you address your needs today.

And with the Linear Tape File System (LTFS), LTO tape options are more compatible than ever before. There’s no need for a proprietary system to locate that document or video file that you’re searching for. LTFS makes it easy and simple. It’s open source and open standard, meaning that it’s broadly available regardless of which brand of LTO tape that you’re using.

Today, LTO technology provides the confidence that the file you save can be accessed by a broad range of partners for years to come. That’s the LTO difference.

ULTRA-FAST STREAMING PERFORMANCE

The amount of data that’s being created, collected, stored and protected is growing all the time. IDC predicts that the amount of data will reach 40 zettabytes by 2020 and more than 163 zettabytes a year by 2025. Increasingly, this data is becoming more valuable than ever before as businesses rely on the insights that data can provide.But storing, accessing and analyzing this data is only as good as how quickly you can do it. And where high-performance is key, LTO Technology is the right option.

Tape? Yes, despite the common misperception that backing up to tape is slower than disk, tape delivers some of the best performance possible when comparing raw speed. In fact, it’s faster than disk.

Tape technology doesn’t have the same complicated backup constraints that slow down transfer rates on disk. With tape, transfer is far more straightforward and simple.

And with LTO-8 tape technology, you can enjoy read/write speeds that approach 750 MB/sec compressed. When you compare native data rates, that’s 360 MB/sec, which is faster than the typical 7,200 RPM hard drive (160 MB/sec).

So next time you’re considering performance as a key aspect of your decision, know that tape provides a great option that can outperform other storage technologies available on the market.

*Based on materials provided by SINTEF. Original article was written by Åse Dragland

DEPENDABLE

For most companies, data is their most prized possession. If there were ever a total loss of this information, there could be serious risks facing the organization: loss of revenue, decline in productivity, damage to reputation and, ultimately, loss of business. Having a reliable resource to store your information is more important than ever. You can rely on LTO technology.More than a quarter of companies have declared a disaster affecting their data in the past five years and of that, 76 percent have caused major business disruptions. There are a lot of threats that can make your data vulnerable; natural disasters, fire, system error, human error, mirroring errors, viruses, theft, hackers, sabotage, just to name a few.

Luckily, LTO tape provides a reliable, offline protection against on-line data corruption. Compared to the shelf-life of disk (3-5 years), LTO tape can withstand the test of time, providing users with a shelf-life of up to 30 years. The protection is also there when you need it, offering a strong error protection and correction algorithm, with an error rate of 1 bit in 1x10E19 bits. That’s four orders of magnitude better than disk, whose error rate is 1 bit per 100 Petabytes. Once your data is written to the tape there’s no need to worry about whether it’s there, it’s immediately verified by the LTO “Read after Write” technology.

LTO technology gives you the confidence you need in knowing that your data is there when you need it. As a tape cartridge is kept offline, it’s a great solution for long-term archiving or for data that doesn’t need to be accessed immediately (cold storage). By diversifying your storage practice (disk-to-disk-to-tape being the best), you can ensure that the tape will always be there when you need. Even when disaster strikes. Now that’s something you can rely on.

PORTABLE

Important data rarely stays put. In fact, data often needs to be accessed from — or stored in — a different location from where the data first originated. Thanks to the portability of LTO tape, that’s never a problem.Many long-term archiving situations require data to be stored in a remote location for the most cost-effective and secure solution. This is particularly true for disaster recovery, where copies of backup data need to be kept separate from the original data source.

Beyond archiving and backup, there are many other applications where data needs to be transferred from where it has been generated to another point. For example, in media and entertainment, the data might be video files that are being sent from production to editing, or for large data centers, it might be gigabytes of data that needs to be mirrored in a different location.

Traditional disk vs. LTO Technology: What options are available to me?

Traditional disk is far less durable, particularly when sending to and from remote locations. Solid-state drives (SSDs) are expensive – up to 90 cents per gigabyte. And Internet transfer drains resources, exposes your files to security concerns and can take a long time..

But fear not, LTO technology can help. In fact, for transferring gigabytes of data from one point to another — quickly, reliably and in the most cost-effective way — it’s your best bet. Best of all, with the capabilities of the Linear Tape File System (LTFS) and its open format, the tapes you need to send or receive are compatible between multiple vendors. Finding files is as easy as if you were plugging a USB drive into your computer, and the technology works across all platforms and operating systems.

Not to mention, LTO-8 tape is cost effective and much less expensive than disk and SSD. Cartridges are more durable, with heavy-duty construction, so are much less fragile than disk. They’re also more secure, with hardware-based encryption options and Write-Once, Read-Many (WORM) options to help further protect data. And with the threat of ransomware and cyberattack on the rise, tape is a reliable offline medium to store sensitive data with complete air gap protection,, so your data is less susceptible to virus, hackers, system errors or other threats.

For portability, think of LTO-8 technology as “low-cost high bandwidth in a box.” It’s easy to use, completely removable and easily transportable. With transfer rates approaching 750 MB/sec compressed and 360 MB/sec native, overnight shipping of 30 TB of compressed data per cartridge can be much less expensive (and faster) than sending via other methods. Transferring an entire data center is as simple as packing up a box full of LTO tapes and shipping them wherever they need to go.

SUSTAINABLE

Though mostly hidden from view, the environmental costs of storing data are substantial. In terms of pollutants, 3 petabytes of disk storage, running all year, can produce over 14 metric tons of CO2.1With energy consumption of stored data growing exponentially year-over-year, many organizations are looking for technologies to reduce the carbon footprint of storing their data and many are turning to tape technology for that solution. Studies show that even slightly shifting the ratio between disk and tape technology, on a global level, could save hundreds of millions of metric tons of CO2 emissions year-over-year!

With this in mind many organizations are moving rarely accessed data to tape technology, in order to significantly reduce the amount of data-storage carbon emissions without sacrificing the integrity of its stored information.

Additionally, energy costs money, and the cost per terabyte of tape storage is considerably less than all other types of digital storage, making the shift to tape appealing to both save substantial carbon emissions and save substantial money. In analyzing the total cost of ownership of digital storage, tape is also the most cost effective way to archive data, beating both cloud and disk in cost per terabyte per month.

As companies seek to achieve carbon emissions reduction targets, many are undertaking expensive adjustments within their supply chains. Data storage, a part of every organization’s strategic infrastructure, may provide an easy path that will contribute to emission reduction initiatives – while saving money at the same time!

1. Total HDD usage data, Statistica.com (2.6 Billion / 15 Watts ea.) World energy consumption from Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation.2. The Organization for Co-operation and Development estimates world electricity consumption per year at 20,000 terawatt hours, or 20 billion megawatt hours. (Note: New York City uses 11,000 MWH per day).

3. Analysis of published energy consumption. IBM TS3500 (3 PB/ 6 drive system) / Isilon Archive appliance (240TB).

4. (1 year, 3PB Systems: IBM TS3500 — 0.5 Metric Tons; NAS 6TB Drives X 498 – 18 Metric Tons; Isilon Archive 12 X 240TB – 44 Metric Tons.)

EASY ACCESS VIA LTFS

First introduced with LTO-5 technology in 2010 and later adopted by SNIA in 2013, The Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is an open software specification that allows for new, simple ways to access data on tape.How it works: LTFS defines the organization of data on the tape into a directory structure, much like you’d use to access files on a thumb or disk drive. It’s a self-describing tape format, which means that you don’t need to rely on proprietary backup software of any kind.

LTFS uses the partitioning feature that’s available on LTO generations 5, 6, 7 and 8. With the use of partitioning, tape is divided “lengthwise” into two sections, or partitions. The smaller partition holds the index, which includes the file system information and metadata that provides details about the files contained in the second partition. When the tape is inserted, the index is quickly copied from the first partition to the workstation or server memory to deliver simple, fast access to the files that you need.

Benefits: With self-describing tape, complexity in data management is reduced. It allows you to view contents of the tape in the OS browser directory tree. And since it’s open source software and not proprietary, it’s easily sharable and increases data portability.

Beyond simplified backup and archiving with direct access to files from your desktop, LTFS gives tape new capabilities where alternative technologies had once been your only choice. You can share content between users working in different environments, allowing for remote data exchange. LTFS simplifies data interchange across workflows, providing for unified organization-wide file sharing. It’s independent of any hardware or software platforms, which means that recovery from disaster is faster and simpler than ever before. And for digital archiving and asset retention, it’s the leading choice with easier to identify and access files after years of storage.

LTFS opens the door to many new uses for tape. Video producers are turning to tape for simple and cost-effective archiving and workflow of high-definition digital content. Large and less frequently accessed files required for big data analysis and medical imaging are more cost-effectively archived on tape over a longer period of time. Any industry where vast amounts of data are being collected and stored – digital surveillance, oil/exploration, cold storage for cloud service providers and banking for example – can benefit from LTO tape with LTFS.

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BENEFITS TAPE LTO