Product manual

52 Viper 200 LTO Product Manual
7
Ultrium tape format
This chapter summarizes the features and benefits of the LTO tape formats, and of
the Ultrium tape cartridges. A typical Ultrium cartridge is shown in Figure 24.
Top
Rear
Front
Figure 24. Ultrium cartridge
Overview of LTO tape formats
Ultrium is one of two LTO tape formats. Like DLT tapes, LTO tapes are recorded
using a linear serpentine recording technique. However, the LTO specification has
improved this recording technique in many ways:
Cartridge memory: All LTO tape cartridges contain a small nonvolatile-memory
chip, called the LTO-CM. The LTO-CM is used to store information about the
location of data on the cartridge, as well as the condition of the cartridge itself
(manufacturing information, number of times the cartridge has been loaded, written,
and read, the last drive to write or read the cartridge, etc.). Tape drives can read this
information almost instantaneously to locate data on the tape. Tape library systems
can read this information without even loading the tape into a drive mechanism,
since the LTO-CM chip communicates with the LTO drive or library controller
through a tiny radio-frequency interface.
More recording channels per tape: Most existing linear tape formats use 4
recording channels. First-generation LTO tapes will have 8 channels, allowing native
data transfer rates of 10 to 20 Mbytes per second. Subsequent generations of tape
will have 16 channels, and will be even faster.