LTO 4 brings twice the capacity

Long a hub for buzz surrounding LTO (linear tap open) topics, lto.org today is announcing that the specs for the fourth-generation of the storage technology are available, right in sync with timing and expectations of LTO’s six-generation roadmap.

The news means that vendors can now apply to obtain a license and start building the next generation of LTO drives and media, which we can expect to see starting in the first of half of the year. And with LTO 4 cartridges to offer a native capacity of 800GB per reel — twice that of the previous generation — the announcement marks a turning point for the technology, which already dominates the mid-tier, holding an 80 percent share on new shipments.

With its impressive capacity, LTO 4’s sustained transfer rate will vary according to each vendor’s implementation but the top performance should hit a zippy 120 MBps — without compression.

LTO 4 will also inherit WORM (write once read many) capabilities from its predecessor, but encryption is the new killer feature that makes the new generation so much more interesting.

LTO 4 drives will have a built-in ASIC able to deliver AES 256 data encryption with minimal slow downs. Encryption key management will be vendor dependent, but decoding an encrypted tape will be possible on any drive, assuming the same backup application and encryption key are used.

LTO, gen 4, also marks a turning point because, according to the blueprint, LTO will look back at only the two previous generations, which means that LTO 1 cartridges will not be playable in the new drives.

The gap in backward compatibility is no reason in itself to drop or stay away from LTO 1 drives; it does, however, mark the beginning of a polarization at the two opposite ends of the technology that will become more evident as more generations become available.