Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

LTO ULTRIUM FORMAT BUCKS STORAGE TREND

It has been a good year so far for the LTO Program as the Ultrium format continues to buck the data storage trend of slow growth.

Certance (formerly Seagate Removable Storage Solutions), HP and IBM Corp, the three technology provider companies (TPCs) for the LTO ( Linear Tape-Open) Program, continue to see strong acceptance of the LTO Ultrium format as evidenced by the format's 2:1 penetration versus the SDLT format based on the Gartner Dataquest, Tape Drive Review and Forecast June 2003. According to Gartner, LTO tape drive shipments for the first nine months of 2003 are still outpacing SDLT shipments by nearly 2:1.

"We believe the analyst research and shipment data for the LTO Ultrium format make it undeniably clear -- the LTO Ultrium format is a hot data storage tape technology that continues to address pent up demand from customers worldwide," said Barry Rudolph, vice president of Tape Storage Systems for IBM. "One key factor to the success of the Ultrium format has been reliability, as indicated by an energy and utilities sector LTO customer."

"... the equipment is absolutely rock solid. It does exactly what they say it will do... it went in without a hitch and has been running that way ever since," said Rodney Lord, director of infrastructure for Aquila Networks Canada.

"Customer experiences like that are the key to the future of the LTO technology," added Rudolph.

Based on a July 9 report by Gartner Dataquest titled "2003 Tape Automation Systems Forecasts," more than twice as many LTO tape libraries were shipped in large automation solutions in 2002 as compared to libraries based on DLT/SDLT.

In July 2003, more than 10 million LTO Ultrium format tape cartridges -- with a combined capacity of 2,000 petabytes -- had shipped worldwide and now over 400,000 LTO Ultrium format tape drives have shipped since September 2000 when products based on the format first became commercially available.

The Ultrium format Generation 2 became available in December 2002, and new generations of LTO Ultrium technology are planned for introduction every 18 to 24 months. Generation 3 is currently planned to offer 800GB cartridge capacity (2:1 compressed), and up to 160MBps data transfer speed (2:1 compressed).

The LTO technology is designed to offer value to users as much for its open standard and solid roadmap as for its high capacity, performance and reliability. LTO technology is being used to help manage and protect the ever increasing amounts of data that pressure backup and restore windows as well as to support the ability of users to reliably archive storage for regulatory requirements and reference data.

The LTO Ultrium format is the only super drive technology based on an open standards specification, providing the benefits of competition while supporting data interchange. This open standards specification, available for license to any manufacturer, already has an impressive roster of over 30 licensees. This allows users to choose from a number of tape drive and data cartridge offerings. This pro-competitive environment is intended to foster technological innovation, competitive pricing and multiple sources of compatible products.

The LTO Ultrium format Generation 2's storage capacity and data transfer speed are among the highest in the industry at 400GB (assuming 2:1 compressed) cartridge capacity, with drive data transfer speeds of up to 70MBps (assuming 2:1 compression). High-end robotic tape libraries using second-generation LTO Ultrium drives have recently demonstrated backup and restore speeds from three to 5TB an hour. The second-generation Ultrium format tape drives also offer backwards-compatible read-and-write capability with the Ultrium format Generation 1, helping to protect the investment customers made in LTO technology.