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LTO tape is being used as a secondary backup storage media, as hard disks are being increasingly used as the main backup device.
Storing backup data in the cloud kind of makes sense as you have elastic storage. Whilst restoring small files and volumes cloud makes sense. Problems arise when you need to restore multiple TB's of data as bandwidth kills download speeds. LTO tape with its high capacity, and portability can certainly speed up the data recovery process in the event of a disaster.
When you use LTO tape media and hardware, you get the added assurance of more than 30 years of storage experience and service behind the entire solution. LTO continues to be committed to giving the best LTO tape products for your applications by running extra processes and quality tests on its LTO Ultrium data media.
LTO tapes can be used for long-term archival storage and backup. In contrast, HDDs are treated like a temporary repository that's smaller in size and does not need to be backed up as often. The tape workflow is different than HDD - tapes don't have ports, they have to be inserted into the drive that keeps spinning on one spool inside the drive. With the increasing rate of data being produced and stored, backup can be a significant investment for your organisation. LTO tape technology offers the storage capacity required to provide backups that are fast and convenient. It also provides a means for restoring valuable information quickly when needed without the problems associated with tape duplication or decommissioning old drives. LTO supports LTFS, this is ideal to store large volumes of data that needs to be kept for 20+ years. Using LTO for the long term archiving, consider using LTO WORM tapes. These are Write Once Read Many and cannot be overwritten as the WORM tapes use copy protection mechanisms.
We have today LTO-9 tape with a capacity of 18TB native, 45TB compressed. Proving LTO tape provides the lowest cost per TB against all other storage technologies.
From the launch of the LTO 9 tape drive, each new cartridge must undergo a one-time initialisation operation to be optimised before being utilised for data writing. Any LTO 9 tape drive will require media optimisation, after which the cartridge can be utilised in any LTO 9 drive without additional optimisation. Next-generation LTO 9 has more tracks because of the higher density, which necessitates more accuracy for data placement. When a brand-new LTO 9 cartridge is loaded for the first time in an LTO-9 tape drive during the initialisation phase, the media optimisation procedure is carried out automatically.
LTO drives, tape autoloaders, and tape libraries are compatible. LTO tape media offers the lowest cost per gigabyte and the highest durability for long-term data storage. Over 25,000PB (25 Exabytes) of data is saved on it globally.
Forget the hassles of tape-based data recording, sharing, and storing; read/write LTFS technology lets you manage files easily and creates an efficient archiving process with no more time spent searching. The LTFS software provides an easy way to access, manage and protect your data, as well as its index. LTFS is also compatible with other LTO tape systems. Simply remove the cartridge from your computer and insert it into a new LTO Ultrium drive for data transfer. Once inserted into the drive, the data can be accessed by simply dragging and dropping files from a USB flash drive into an LTFS partition on an LTO Ultrium drive. This allows data to be easily transferred between operating systems without reformatting each time.
As a data storage alternative, LTO tape is increasingly being used to protect, transport, and archive large amounts of data. But despite the benefits of such technology, there are still some challenges when it comes to using LTO tape drives in your workstation. LTFS (Linear Tape File System) solves these issues by providing simple and fast movements of files from tape to the hard disk and vice versa. The software works equally well for both moving large files and whole folders from one device to another; there’s no need for complicated setups or special software drivers – just drag and drop files at high speed directly from tape onto the desktop or vice-versa.
Linear Tape File System (LTFS) works incorporated with LTO technology's "partitioning capability" LTFS can be self-describing to enhance archive management. It only takes a few seconds to use a file from a USB flash drive to access data stored on an LTO Ultrium tape cartridge.
Key LTFS Features
Archive moves your data off the primary production disk and onto cheaper secondary or tertiary storage. This enables your organisation to exploit the full power of its large datasets stored in numerous storage devices and locations. An archive is a one-of-a-kind, unique instance of less frequently accessed information that has been moved off the primary production disk to lower-cost secondary or tertiary storage. The information is kept in a single location and is frequently a permanent record or data set that is kept there without being changed or deleted for a very long time, possibly years. When applications and users storing information in a file system request an archive, it can be automatically retrieved. Intelligent software continuously tracks, manages, and moves data up and down the storage tiers using rich metadata, indexes, tags, directories, and global namespaces to unlock archives and deliver high-performance search and retrieval across the storage spectrum.
Ready to revolutionise your near-line or active archive? LTO tape has the lowest energy overhead of any storage solution, with the ability to handle one million passes and 20,000 write cycles per tape. It's also able to store more than 1 petabyte in a cartridge, delivering maximum capacity with high reliability.
An LTO tape drive encrypts all data as it is written to tape, making your digital information safer than if you were storing it in an unencrypted form on your existing hard drive. As a result, you can use more than one backup media simultaneously, e.g., during the off-hours when your primary server is not being accessed and a second backup takes place. The LTO tape drives that we provide with our Complete Cloud Backup service are the only ones available that fully comply with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley or HIPAA mandates regarding backup file documentation and encryption keys retention. LTO encryption is often implemented separately by various vendors, but in general, the procedure works by passing a symmetric key to the tape drive at the start of the backup operation. This key is used to encrypt (and subsequently decrypt) backup files as they are written. Data is so much more than the numbers on a spreadsheet; data is what drives business. Unstructured data and video files full of unstructured data only hold potential for your business if you can turn that information into insight. Today businesses must be able to preserve data for decades and easily extract insights from it. Our solutions do precisely that – we give you the software and services needed to manage and enrich data, including the most complex unstructured data and video files. That’s what we do—we deliver intelligent solutions that make you more successful with every new customer engagement you deliver.
LTO Ultrium tape was initially invented by HP, IBM & Seagate in order to compete with Quantum DLT tape. Seagate sold it's LTO share holding to Quantum and in turn they stopped building DLT.
LTO is an Open Tape Format meaning that there are no single source supply of media. LTO tape technology is continually being developed by IBM, HP & Quantum and has a road-map that goes beyond LTO-12.
Here is an article we have written titled "Data Backup Full Overview". It covers many of the reasons why businesses should regularly backup data in order to protect the vase amounts of information that is created daily. Topics include Backup methods, RTO/RPO, optimisation techniques and much more.
In addition to this we can now provide SaaS for cloud backup of the following cloud services.
In addition to the above we can also backup Azure DevOps, Zendesk, Power Platform, Dynamics 365. If you want a demonstration or to know more, please contact us using the details below.
Talk to Fortuna Data today about your need for an LTO tape solution. Consider using LTO as the Green Storage option that will save money with reduced running costs.
If you would like us to quote for the new LTO-9 tape products then please call us on +44 (01256) 331614 or complete our form and we will respond.
