IBM LTO 7 Ultrium Media - 38L7302

IBM LTO 7 Tapes - LTO Ultrium 7 Tape Data Cartridge 38L7302
Capacity - 6TB up to 15TB Compressed (IBM P/N 38L7302)
High capacity IBM LTO7 tape media designed for high reliability

Features and Benefits

• High-capacity, high-reliability tape cartridge for LTO Ultrium Generation 7 storage environments
• Provides 6TB native storage capacity and up to 15TB with 2.5:1 compression
• Supports IBM Spectrum Archive
• Compatible with Linear Tape File System (LTFS)
• 30 Year Archival Life
• Designed to help improve read/write reliability by storing IBM’s statistical media read/write analysis on every use of the cartridge when using IBM LTO tape drives
• Designed to adhere to widely supported Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Ultrium 7 design specifications
• Higher capacity per volume requires less library cartridge capacity and helps reduce backup windows by requiring less volume mounts
• Designed to help improve read/write reliability by storing IBM’s statistical media read/write analysis on every use of the cartridge when used with IBM LTO tape drives

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
LTO-7 Tape Media Formatted for use in LTO-8 Tape Drives

What is LTO-7 (M8)?

• LTO-T M-8 Tape Media is a new LTO technology feature with the name of “LTO-8 Type M Formatted LTO-7 Media”. For simplicity, this feature is also known as “M8”.
• LTO-8 drives include a new format feature enabling customers to increase the capacity of new, unused LTO Ultrium 7 cartridges by up to 50 percent to store up to 9 TB (uncompressed) or 22.5 TB (2.5:1 compressed) of data.

Can the customer use any LTO-7 cartridge to be LTO-7 (M8), or do they have to buy a specific one?

• Customers can use any LTO-7 cartridge so long as it is new and unused. The formatted LTO-7 (M8) cartridges cannot be read by LTO-7 tape drives, so it’s important that customers format, label and handle the LTO-7 (M8) tapes accordingly.

How will LTO 8 libraries, autoloaders and customers know which tapes are standard LTO-7 and which are LTO-7 (M8)?

• The tapes will need to be bar coded correctly. Standard LTO tape barcodes use a L# media ID designator at the end of the label to indicate the LTO generation. For example, “L7” indicates a standard LTO-7 tape cartridge and “L8” a standard LTO-8 cartridge. The LTO-7 (M8) cartridges use bar code labels that have an “M8” media ID.
• The media ID is the two right most characters printed on a bar code label. The media ID indicates the media type to the drive.

Is this M8 type compability available on other generations of LTO tape drives?

• No, this new feature is only available with LTO-8 Tape drives.

Will this M8 type capability be available with LTO-9 and future generations?

• That has not yet been determined by the LTO consortium

What is the benefit of the LTO-7 (M8) tape media?

• Customers with new, unused LTO-7 tapes cab get 50% more capacity on each tape with an LTO-8 tape drive
• The $/TB cost may be better with LTO-7 (M8) compared to LTO-8.

All prior LTO generations have supported 2-generation back read support, why won't LTO-8 drives?

• After seven generations, and 17 years of shipments, LTO needed a technology transition to support the higher storage densities and performatnce demanded by today's data storage needs.  This transition includes both the media technology and the read/write tape head technology of the drives.  The cost to support 2-generation read capability, and the new LTO-9 capacity and performance made this support infeasible.