LTO 4 Tape Specifications

The cohort of LTO Ultrium Tape technology has enthused on the next making technology and has shaped the LTO Ultrium 4 information magazine. An upgrading of 100% in excess of the preceding technology LTO 3 containing room of 400 Giga Bite ( GB) where the LTO 4 magazine has the extensive capability of 800 Giga Bite( GB). The LTO 4 Ultrium information magazine makes use of the same from feature as LTO Tapes products.

Data Media Experts has recompense above contending media producer. These comprise advanced technology, enormous skill with the expansion of the products such as SDLT tapes and close maneuver with the drive maker.

This is twofold the capability of the present LTO-3 tapes design and a 50% 1/O velocity enhanced. The drives can also encrypt information being written to the drives to aid, avoid information thrashing in the course of magazine larceny or trouncing.

The Data Media Experts LTO Ultrium 4 design have the new features, encryption capacities premeditated to facilitate hardware-based writing of encrypted information to the LTO Ultrium information magazine, serving to defend the storage space and convey of responsive data.

The LTO 4 tapes design has the capacity to encrypt/decrypt information inside the tape drive hardware. The LTO-4 Ultrium backing tape does not necessitate the software support encryption and its intrinsic presentation expenses. The LTO-4 Ultrium Tape Drive permits information to be encrypted subsequent firmness preserving finest storeroom competence. Through firmness, the tape drive hardware-based information encryption also progresses the competent utilize of accessible storeroom capability. The further process of encryption departs firmness until after the encryption procedure has used consign, frequently making haphazard information that cannot be compacted.

Encryption is a typical element of the Ultrium LTO-4 design which necessitates that all drives ought to be encryption conscious. All LTO-4 tape drives from any dealer will return the suitable sagacity codes when offered with an encrypted LTO-4 backing magazine tape. The execution of the encryption capacity is, nevertheless, elective and accordingly some producer’s LTO-4 drives may not have this capacity. Where drives have encryption facilitated, swapping of encrypted information is made feasible by the typical nature of the design pattern, despite of producer.

The Data Media Experts Ultrium LTO-4 backing tape drive can read the LTO-2 design tapes and on other hand, reads and writes LTO-3 design tapes. Conversely encryption is not a hold up facet of either the LTO-3 of LTO-2 tape design or drives. The encryption role of the tape drive is proscribed by two latest SCSI instructions that are motorized by the SCSI T10 principles board, Security Protocol In (SPIN) and Security Protocol Out (SPOUT). SPOUT is used to allow encryption and locates the key, while SPIN is used to acquire the encryption position of the drive.

The Data Media Experts Ultrium LTO-4 tape drive encryption typical is AES Galois Counter Mode with a 256-bit solution. This is a undisclosed key ( or symmetric) algorithm, necessitate the identical key encrypt and decrypt information. To conserve protection the key is not reassigned to the tape magazine under any situations and is only preserved by the drive while power is maintained, if not, then a new key is chosen.

What is Tape Media?

A tape drive is a peripheral hardware device that reads and writes data into non-volatile magnetic tapes. A magnetic tape that resembles a conventional audio cassette tape contains a magnetized coating on a thin plastic strip which data is written on.

Unlike dynamic and random storage mediums such as hard disks and flash drives, a tape drive operates using indexing and sequential-access. You have to run a tape from beginning to the end to perform a read or write operation. This means that data is written to the tape in one continuous stream.

To read a particular piece of information, the tape must wind past all preceding data to access it. Quite simply, a tape drive is like a cassette recorder that stores large volumes of digital data. Due to its cost efficiency and long shell life, tape drive makes a popular device for backup and archival purposes.

HOW IT WORKS?

A tape drive uses a controlled motor to wind the tape from one reel to another with its magnetic strip passing a read/write head. To cope with the difference between the rate which data is written into the tape and the data streaming to or from the computer or host, the tape drives incorporates a tape drive controller, which performs buffer procedures and logical operations such as ECC (Error Correction Code) during the data storage process.

During a backup process, the computer memory buffer is loaded with the data information from the host computer and sent to the controller's buffer. The controller then commands the recording mechanism to write the data into tape. When it completes, more data is loaded into the controller buffer from the computer and the cycle repeats itself until all data has been completely stored.

Storage capacity of tape drives range from a few hundred megabytes to several Terabytes compressed. They support compression capability and transfer rate of over 500MB/s. Tape drives are interoperable and usually connected to the computer via SCSI, IDE, USB and Firewire.

Tape Drives come in several formats and/or standards:

AIT (Advanced Intelligent Tape)

AIT tape is 8mm across and uses helical scanning technique and the MIC (Memory in Cassette) technology to provide increased access. It also supports high data transfer rate up to 78 MB/sec and maximum storage capacity of 500GB compressed using ALDC (adaptive lossless data compression) technologies.

DAT (Digital Audio Tape)

DAT tape is 4mm across and offers over 40GB of storage at a data transfer speed of about 5 Mb per second and is optimized for high volume backups.

DLT (Digital Linear Tape)

DLT tape uses a technique to write data onto the tape in 128 or 208 linear tracks. DLT cartridges can contain around 70GB of data with compression. SuperDLT, a new DLT variant supports tape capacity up to 300GB(SDLT 600) and transfer data at speeds up to 36MB/sec.

LTO (Linear Tape-Open)

LTO tape uses an open-format technology that provides compatibility to various storage media products. It supports a capacity up to 6.4 Terabytes and transfer rate of 540MB/s.

Packet Tape

Packet Tape - available from VXA (tape manufacturer) has a capacity of 33GB native and 66GB compressed. It is an 8mm format and one that is commonly used by home-based business owners.

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