IBM TS3500 Tape Library With LTO-8 Drive

IBM TS3500 Tape Library Supports LTO Ultrium 8 tape drive technology

IBM TS1080 Model F8A is designed to be installed in an IBM TS3500 tape library to deliver capacity and performance for the midrange open systems environment.

This model incorporates the new LTO-8 tape drive with enhanced maximum tape drive throughput over the LTO-7 tape drive (Ultrium 7). It has a native data transfer of up to 360MB/s for FH tape drives.

The TS1080 supports the LTO-8 media specification of double the compressed capacity with up to 30TB with 2.5 to 1 compression (up to 12TB native capacity) as compared to previous LTO-7 compressed capacity of up to 15TB with 2.5 to 1 compression (up to 6TB native capacity) per tape cartridge.

IBM Ultrium 8 tape drives can read and write LTO Ultrium 7.

The TS1080 has an 8Gb FC dual-ported interface for connection to a wide spectrum of open system servers.

It supports data encryption with Ultrium 8 and Ultrium 7 media.

IBM Ultrium 8 enhancements to help improve performance and reliability include:

Native data transfer rate of up to 360MB/s for FH tape drives
LTO-8 media specification tape cartridge compressed capacity of up to 30TB (up to 12TB native)
8Gb FC dual-ported drive attachment
A 1GB internal buffer
Support for media partitioning and self-describing tape with IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition
LTO-8 encryption support
Support for new and field merge TS1080 (3588-F8A) drives into 3584 models L53 and D53
LTO-8 cartridge capacity of up to 240PB per library (up to 600PB with 2.5 to 1 compression)

TS1080 Model F8A can be installed in new or installed TS3500 tape library models L53, D53, L52, and D52.

Key prerequisites
Appropriate levels of host and drive software are required to attach TS1080 Model F8A to a wide range of environments, including select IBM Power Systems, IBM System p, other servers running Linux and Microsoft Windows OS environments that support FC interfaces.

Planned availability date: November 17, 2017