IBM First to Reveal LTO-7 Product

IBM was the first company to launch an LTO-6 drive available November 9, 2012.

Three years later, it’s also the first one to reveal an LTO-7 device supposed to reach the market on November 20, 2015, as Big Blue continues one of the strongest promoter of tape technology in the industry since decades.

The specs comply with the announcement of the LTO Program last September.

Features of the External IBM TS2270 SAS Tape Drive Model H7S:

Half-high form factor for the drive, the enclosure width enabling two TS2270 storage devices to be mounted side by side in a 19-inch server rackmount shelf kit, requiring 2U
1GB internal buffer
Up to native 6TB capacity and 300MB/s transfer rate, 15TB and and 750MB/s with 2.5 to 1 compression
Ability to read and write on LTO-6 cartridges, and read LTO-5 data
Dual 6Gb SAS attachment
Encryption support in drive to work with application-managed encryption
Support for LTFS, media partitioning and self-describing tape
Connection to system servers, including select Power Systems models, PureFlex systems, and IBM BladeCenters
Support for Windows, Unix OS

Specs of the LTO-7 cartridge:

Linear serpentine recording half-inch cartridge
5.6µ (0.00022 in.) tape thickness
960m (3,149 ft) tape length
200g weight
16KB cartridge memory
WORM version available

In conjunction, IBM released several products incorporating new LTO-7 tape drive:

TS2900 rack-mountable or deskside autoloader with a single SAS half-high drive and 9 cartridges.
7226 model 1U3 multi-media enclosure with up to two HH LTO-7 SAS or FC tape drives, two RDX removable disk drive docking stations, or up to four DVD-RAM drives, being compatible with most POWER6, POWER7, and POWER8 systems, as well as BladeCenter models (PS700, PS701, PS702, PS703, and PS704), and PureFlex systems that offer current level AIX, IBMi, and LINUX OSs
TS3100 library with up to two half-high or one full-high tape drive with 24 cartridge slots in two removable magazines, including a standard one-cartridge I/O station, a remote management unit and barcode reader
TS3200 with up to four half-high or two full-high tape drives with 48 slots in four removable magazines, including a standard three-cartridge I/O station and barcode reader
TS3310 library model L5B, a 5U unit which contains the library control module, fixed tape cartridge storage of 35 slots, a configurable I/O station with six slots, a touchscreen display, cartridge handling robotics, and up to two LTO-7, -6, or -5 drives
TS3310 library model E9U, an optional 9U expansion module that can accommodate up to four LTO drives, additional storage slots, and a configurable I/O station of 12 cartridges – up to four TS3310 E9U expansion modules can be added to the TS3310 model L5B, either at the time of purchase or as a follow-on upgrade to fill a 41U rack
TS3500 tape library with up to 12 drives and 224 slots (16 standard) per frame for 300PB compressed, and, per library, up to 4.5EB compressed for 15 libraries interconnected with FC interface
TS4500 library any combination of LTO and TS1150 and TS1140 tape drives using 3592 cartridges for up to 5.5PB of uncompressed data in a single frame library, scaling up at 1PB per square foot to a total of 175.5PB

IBM didn’t reveal the source of the LTO-7 media but we presume they come from Fujifilm.

Now we are waiting for HP to launch its own drive and media makers (Fujifilm, Maxell, Sony?) their cartridges.