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Linear Tape-Open
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Linear Tape-Open
Linear Tape-Open (LTO), also known as the LTO Ultrium format, is a magnetic tape data storage technology used for backup, data archiving, and data transfer. It was originally developed in the late 1990s as an open standards alternative to the proprietary magnetic tape formats available at the time. Upon introduction, LTO rapidly defined the super tape market segment and has consistently been the best-selling super tape format. The latest generation as of 2025, LTO-10, can hold 30 TB in one cartridge.
Cartridges contain hundreds of meters of half-inch (12.65 mm) wide tape media wound onto a single reel. The first generation LTO cartridge was released in 2000 and stored 0.1 TB of data. With each new generation, the capacity has increased, while maintaining the same physical size cartridge.
Mechanisms (a.k.a. tape drives, streamers, transports) extract the tape from the cartridge and spool it up on a second reel in the mechanism, reading or writing data as the tape moves between reels. Robotic libraries exist that can hold hundreds or thousands of LTO cartridges and dozens of mechanisms.
In contrast to other non-tape data storage formats, LTO offers high-capacity removable cartridges with a lower cost per TB and better long term stability. As an overall system, LTO requires significantly less electrical power per TB and includes builtin technologies useful for data interchange and safe-keeping, like LTFS, WORM, encryption and data compression.
Half-inch (12.65 mm) wide magnetic tape has been used for data storage since the 1950s, starting with the open reel formats IBM 7-track and later IBM 9-track.
In the mid-1980s, smaller, enclosed, single-reel cartridge formats were developed by IBM and DEC. Although the physical tape was nominally the same width in these new formats and the preceding open-reel formats, the technologies and intended markets were significantly different and there was no compatibility between them. The IBM 3480 tape format was designed to meet the demanding requirements of its mainframe products. DEC's CompacTape was targeted at a broader market, including minicomputers and smaller systems. Later on, it was renamed Digital Linear Tape (DLT) and eventually sold to Quantum Corporation.
In the late 1980s, Exabyte's Data8 format, derived from Sony's dual-reel cartridge 8 mm video format, saw some popularity, especially with UNIX systems. Sony followed this success with their own now-discontinued 8 mm data format, Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT).
By the late 1990s, Quantum's DLT and Sony's AIT were the leading options for high-capacity tape storage for PC servers and UNIX systems. These technologies were tightly controlled by their owners and consequently, there was little to no competition between vendors and the prices were relatively high.
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Linear Tape-Open
Linear Tape-Open (LTO), also known as the LTO Ultrium format, is a magnetic tape data storage technology used for backup, data archiving, and data transfer. It was originally developed in the late 1990s as an open standards alternative to the proprietary magnetic tape formats available at the time. Upon introduction, LTO rapidly defined the super tape market segment and has consistently been the best-selling super tape format. The latest generation as of 2025, LTO-10, can hold 30 TB in one cartridge.
Cartridges contain hundreds of meters of half-inch (12.65 mm) wide tape media wound onto a single reel. The first generation LTO cartridge was released in 2000 and stored 0.1 TB of data. With each new generation, the capacity has increased, while maintaining the same physical size cartridge.
Mechanisms (a.k.a. tape drives, streamers, transports) extract the tape from the cartridge and spool it up on a second reel in the mechanism, reading or writing data as the tape moves between reels. Robotic libraries exist that can hold hundreds or thousands of LTO cartridges and dozens of mechanisms.
In contrast to other non-tape data storage formats, LTO offers high-capacity removable cartridges with a lower cost per TB and better long term stability. As an overall system, LTO requires significantly less electrical power per TB and includes builtin technologies useful for data interchange and safe-keeping, like LTFS, WORM, encryption and data compression.
Half-inch (12.65 mm) wide magnetic tape has been used for data storage since the 1950s, starting with the open reel formats IBM 7-track and later IBM 9-track.
In the mid-1980s, smaller, enclosed, single-reel cartridge formats were developed by IBM and DEC. Although the physical tape was nominally the same width in these new formats and the preceding open-reel formats, the technologies and intended markets were significantly different and there was no compatibility between them. The IBM 3480 tape format was designed to meet the demanding requirements of its mainframe products. DEC's CompacTape was targeted at a broader market, including minicomputers and smaller systems. Later on, it was renamed Digital Linear Tape (DLT) and eventually sold to Quantum Corporation.
In the late 1980s, Exabyte's Data8 format, derived from Sony's dual-reel cartridge 8 mm video format, saw some popularity, especially with UNIX systems. Sony followed this success with their own now-discontinued 8 mm data format, Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT).
By the late 1990s, Quantum's DLT and Sony's AIT were the leading options for high-capacity tape storage for PC servers and UNIX systems. These technologies were tightly controlled by their owners and consequently, there was little to no competition between vendors and the prices were relatively high.
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