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Bring Greater Density to Your Spectra Tape Library with LTO-9.
Regardless of size, most organizations face the same data management challenges – how to efficiently and cost-effectively protect and manage ever growing data repositories. Spectra® Tape libraries with LTO-9 technology offer innovative storage solutions for small businesses up to the largest enterprises.
Store More than an Exabyte of Data (Native) in a Single Library for Long-Term Retention
Continuing its tradition of developing the world’s most innovative tape libraries, Spectra Logic’s flagship TFinity® ExaScale® Tape Library, now stores an unprecedented exabyte of uncompressed data with LTO-9, making it the world’s largest storage system. In addition, each of the company’s libraries now stores more than a six petabytes of data with the integration of LTO-9 technology, including the company’s popular Spectra Stack Tape Library, which will hold over 10 petabytes of uncompressed data in a single standard rack with LTO-9. Offering secure, scalable and reliable data protection, Spectra’s family of tape libraries delivers economical and flexible data storage with the highest capacities available in a single footprint.
LTO-9 Boosts Capacity and Performance
New LTO-9 tape technology surpasses the per-cartridge capacity of LTO-8 by 50 percent to 45TB compressed (18TB native) and advances full-height LTO-9 drive performance up to 900 MB/s compressed (400 MB/s native).* A single LTO-9 tape drive can write up to 3.6 TB/h.
LTO-9 Initialization for Media
With the release of the LTO-9 tape drive, a new one-time initialization process is required to optimize each new cartridge before it is used for writing data. Media optimization is performed on any LTO-9 tape drive and the cartridge can then be used in any LTO-9 drive without further optimization. With the increased density, next generation LTO-9 includes an increased number of tracks, which requires greater precision to optimize data placement. The media optimization process takes place automatically on the first load of a new LTO-9 cartridge in an LTO-9 tape drive during the initialization process. When using Spectra Certified Media, tapes are initialized before shipping (see below). Once initialized, the LTO-9 media is ready to use and does not need further initialization.
LTO-9 Certified Media
Although the initialization of LTO-9 media occurs only once, it can be quite time consuming. The process typically takes between 40 and 60 minutes, but can take up to 2 hours. To enable customers to immediately use their LTO-9 cartridges, Spectra Logic provides LTO-9 Certified Media, which is pre-initialized during the certification process. When users receive Spectra Certified Media, no initialization of the new cartridge is necessary. The optimization process is performed in the most optimal range of temperature and humidity in the Spectra Logic manufacturing facility which ensures that they are optimized as precisely as possible and therefore able to be used in any environment within the operational specification for LTO-9 drives and media.
Spectra LTO-9 Certified Media can save hundreds or even thousands of hours of drive usage for customers. With Spectra LTO-9 Certified Media, customers can begin reading and writing data immediately instead of initializing new cartridges. It also means that the host software that is used with the tape library will not experience any delays or timeouts due to the extended initialization time needed on new LTO-9 tapes if they are purchased from Spectra Logic. Spectra Logic LTO-9 Certified Media also comes with all of the other benefits provided by the certification process including cleaning every tape, verify the read/write performance and capacity of every tape, enabling full Media Lifecycle Management functionality, and providing a lifetime warranty on every certified tape sold.
LTO-9 Highlights
- Delivers the only open tape format available, providing the first and only cooperative development effort in the industry
- Provides the lowest cost per gigabyte data storage available
- Provides high reliability with proven enterprise-level technology and quality assurance
- Offers Linear Tape File System (LTFS) functionality
- TMR head technology – delivers superior capacity, performance and dependability
LTO-9 Enhanced with Spectra Certified Media
The introduction of LTO-9 drives and media with its improved performance and capacity over LTO-8 is a solid and substantial advancement in storage technology. Spectra enhances its tape media by including Spectra’s Media Lifecycle Management (MLM), Data Integrity Verification (DIV), and CarbideClean® features that produce Spectra Certified Media with a Spectra-backed lifetime guarantee. LTO-9 drives are backward-compatible with LTO-8 media, allowing for full read/write capability.
Spectra MigrationPassSM Service:
An innovative way to preserve drive and media investment
Both Spectra and the Spectra® Stack Tape Library make any migration plan seamless. Tape is designed for long-term data storage, but too often users are required to sacrifice their existing investment in tape drives when they move to a new tape library. Spectra Stack’s MigrationPass eliminates the need to make that costly decision. MigrationPass starts with the unique ability to migrate existing tape drives into the Spectra Stack library. It also includes a program to help migrate to newer LTO generations as they are released. This unprecedented offering protects user investment while providing a truly open approach to working with a technology designed for multi-generation use.
Intelligent Object Management with Spectra BlackPearl®:
Time consuming and expensive tape migration is a thing of the past
Traditionally organizations could skip a generation of LTO drives and migrate data forward, but recent changes in LTO technology allow users to read/write data back just one generation. With BlackPearl, organizations can migrate data from any generation (LTO-6 or newer) seamlessly to the latest LTO-9 tape technology with a background migration. In addition, BlackPearl can import any tapes written in LTFS format into its environment and begin to use and migrate this data to the newest generation, creating an innovative way to reduce the complexity sometimes associated with tape migrations.
LTO: The Industry Standard for Tape Technology
LTO tape technology is the only open standards, nonproprietary tape technology. Interchangeability of tape media and drives is guaranteed from all LTO manufacturers to allow freedom of choice for end users. With LTO tape technology you will experience the lowest cost, most energy efficient tape technology with ongoing advancements driven by high volume and competition.
LTO-9 Capacities and Spectra Tape Libraries
| Spectra Stack | T380 | T680 | T950/T950v 8-frame | TFinity ExaScale 45-frame | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum Number of Drives | 21 FH/42 HH Drives | 12 | Up to 120 (8-frame) | Up to 144 in a 45-frame | |
| Max Throughput LTO-9 FH* (TB/hr native/compressed) |
30.24 TB / 75.6 TB | 17.28 TB / 43.2 TB | 172.8 TB / 432 TB | 207.36 TB / 518.4 TB | |
| Maximum Media/Slot Count | 560 | 380 | 670 | 10,020 (8-frame) | 56,400 (45-frame) |
| Max Capacity LTO-9 (native/compressed) |
10.08 PB / 25.2 PB | 6.8 PB / 17.1 PB | 12 PB / 30.1 PB | 180.3 PB / 450.9 PB | 1.01 EB / 2.53 EB |
* FH = Full-Height Drive ** – LTO-9 compressed capacity calculated at 2.5:1 ratio.
*To fully maximize the library, 10 slots utilize the EE port as a storage chamber.
Spectra LTO-9 Tape Drive Specs
Data transfer rate: Up to 900 MB/s compressed (400 MB/s native)
Data compression: Streaming Lossless Data Compression (SLDC)
Data cartridge: LTO-9 (rewritable) LTO-9 (WORM)
Cleaning cartridge: LTO Universal Cleaning Cartridge (UCC)
Backwards Compatibility: Read/write LTO-8 media
Encryption: AES 256-GCM (256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard).
LTO-9 reads/writes LTO-8 encrypted media.
Drive Head Type: Tunneling Magnetoresistive (TMR)
Mean time between failures (MTBF):
250,000 hours at 100 percent duty cycle.
Mean swaps between failures (MSBF):
100,000 tape load/unload cycles.
Operating Environment
| Operating Temperature |
Relative Humidity (Non-condensing) |
|
|---|---|---|
| Recommended Environment |
15° to 25° C (59° to 77° F) |
20% to 50% |
| Allowable Environment |
15° to 35° C (59° to 95° F) |
20% to 80% 22° C dew point max |
Resources
BlackPearl for VSNExplorer
Grass Valley’s end-to-end ecosystem of reliable, open standards-based solutions helps content creators, broadcasters and media organizations to produce brilliant content and build successful media businesses. Our award-winning technology and trusted industry expertise empower our customers to create captivating experiences that connect people anywhere, on any device, through the magic of media.
Since 1992, Aveco has grown into the TV industry’s largest independent automation company serving more than 300 of the world’s leading broadcasters. Aveco provides solutions for production and master control playout automation, media asset management and workflow automation. In 2019, Aveco won the IBC Innovation Award in the “Content Everywhere” category. Read the 
