As a valued partner in your data storage and management solutions, we understand the importance of keeping you informed about changes that could impact your business. Today, we want to discuss a significant development in the market for LTO Tapes, a vital component of many of our storage solutions.
Recent Changes by Manufacturers
LTO Tapes, manufactured by industry leaders Fujifilm and Sony and are distributed under renowned brands such as IBM, Quantum, and HPE. Recently, Fujifilm announced a substantial price increase for these tapes, which is likely to influence the entire LTO tape market. While we are still awaiting notification from Sony.
Details of the Price Increase
Fujifilm LTO Ultrium 9 Data Tape Cartridges: Prices will increase by 15%.
FujiFilm LTO Ultrium 8 and 7 Tape Cartridges: Prices will see a dramatic 40% increase.
What This Means for You
Price Adjustment: In response to these changes from our suppliers, we will also need to adjust our prices accordingly. Despite these increases, we remain committed to offering the most competitive prices possible.
Opportunity to Stock Up: To lessen the impact of these price hikes, we encourage you to consider purchasing LTO Tapes now. We are currently stocking up at the existing lower prices and will have a limited supply available until July 1st. Post July 1st, as our current stock depletes, the new stock will reflect the revised pricing.
Looking Ahead
We recognize that such changes can pose challenges, but our team is dedicated to helping you navigate this transition smoothly. We are available to discuss your upcoming data storage needs and assist you in making the most cost-effective purchasing decisions during this period.
We’re Here to Help
Thank you for your understanding and for continuing to trust TapeandMedia.com with your data storage needs. If you have any questions or require further information, please do not hesitate to reach out to us directly.
Do you Have an LTO 8 tape drive but can’t find any LTO 8 Tapes! You are not alone. A patent infringement lawsuit between Sony and FujiFilm has temporarily stopped the import of all LTO 8 tapes into the United States. There is a solution that will help you! LTO 7 Type M Media/Tapes.
The LTO Program has introduced a new capability for LTO-8 drives: The ability of an LTO-8 drive to write and read 9 TB (or up to 22.5TB compressed @ 2.5:1) on a brand new LTO-7 tape cartridge instead of the 6 TB specified by the LTO-7 format. This LTO 7 tape is known as LTO-7 Type M media and it has a barcode label with a M8 Media Identifier. Type M cartridges can only be initialized in libraries or autoloaders. Although standalone LTO-8 drives cannot initialize Type M cartridges, they can read and write LTO-7 Type M cartridges that have been initialized in a library or autoloader.
Information about LTO 7 Type M Media
LTO 7Type M Media can only be created from new, unused LTO-7 media. Only new,unused LTO-7 cartridges may be initialized as LTO-7 Type M. Once a cartridge is initialized as Type M it may not be changed back to a standard LTO-7 cartridge.
Can only initialized by an LTO-8 tape library or autoloader. LTO-7 Type M cartridges can only initialized as Type M in an LTO-8 drive within a tape library that has been configured to initialize cartridges with a M8 bar code to Type M.
Will not be compatible with LTO-9 Drives. There is no commitment by the LTO manufacturers to support LTO-7 Type M media in LTO-9 drives. If LTO-9 backward compatibility is required, then only new LTO-8 12 TB native media should be utilized.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Question: What’s the difference between standard LTO-7 and LTO-7 Type M media?
Answer: LTO-7 Type M media is created from standard LTO-7 read/write media during the initialization process. This process sets up different information in the cartridge memory and allows an LTO-8 drive to write 50% more tracks than on standard LTO-7 cartridges.
The data is written at the same linear density as LTO-7. The LTO-8 drive has narrower read heads than LTO-7, so it is able to read the resulting narrower tracks. However, the read heads in the LTO-7 drive are too wide to read these narrow tracks. The bar code label ending in “M8” is used to give a visual difference between the two cartridges.
An LTO-7 Type M cartridge also has a unique density code in the cartridge memory. Software that has enabled Type M cartridges uses this density code to identify the cartridge and correctly deal with the amount of data that can be written to it. The Appendix contains a table of possible states of cartridges correctly and incorrectly labeled.
Question: What is an LTO 7 tape cartridge initialized as LTO-7 Type M media?
Answer: LTO-7 Type M media is a standard LTO Ultrium 7 tape that has been labeled with a barcode label ending with the last 2 characters “M8” and initialized in an LTO 8 library autoloader at the higher Type M density. This LTO-7 Type M tape media will have 9TB native capacity or up to 22.5TB (compressed @ 2.5:1).
HPE LTO 7 Type M Tape with M8 barcode label
Q: When is LTO-7 Type M media initialized?
Answer: LTO 7 Tape Media can be purchased as pre-initialized LTO-7 Type M media or as un-initialized LT0-7 media. Un-initialized LTO-7 media can be initialized as LTO-7 Type M media by applying an “M8” barcode label and writing data to the media in a tape library or autoloader that supports un-initialized LTO-7 Type M media.
Q: Is LTO-7 Type M media interchangeable among different LTO-8 manufacture’s drives?
Answer: Yes, LTO-7 Type M tape media behaves exactly as standard cartridges in terms of vendor compatibility. Irrespective of the drive manufacturer that initializes the cartridge, an LTO-7 Type M media can be used in any other LTO-8 drive manufacturer.
Question: Can previously used LTO-7 media be converted to LTO-7 Type M media?
Answer: No, the LTO-7 Type M media can only be created with new, un-initialized media.
Question: Do all LTO-8 tape library products support LTO-7 Type M media?
Answer: This depends on the LTO-8 tape library vendor. Please consult your product documentation.
Question: Do all LTO-8 standalone tape drives (i.e. not installed in a library) support previously initialized LTO-7 Type M media?
Answer: Yes. However, keep in mind that if you insert an LTO 7 Tape that has not been initialized as Type M Media into a standalone LTO-8 tape drive, it will initialize the new, un-initialized LTO-7 media as LTO-7 Type A media (6 TB native) regardless of the barcode label that is applied.
Question. Can I initialize Type M media in a standalone drive?
Answer: No, you cannot initialize Type M media in standalone drives. LTO-7 Type M cartridges must be initialized in a library that supports LTO-7 Type M. The library makes the decision on the type of cartridge based upon the cartridge bar code – if the last two characters are “M8” it will be initialized as Type M, otherwise it will be initialized as a normal LTO-7 cartridge.
Question: What happens if an LTO-7 Type M media is loaded into an LTO-7 tape drive?
Answer: The drive will post an error message indicating that the cartridge format is incompatible and will not thread the media. In other words, an LTO-7 tape drive will not be able to load an LTO-7 Type M media.
Question: Will LTO-9 tape drives be backward compatible with LTO-7 Type M media?
Answer: No. Only LT0-8 Drives will be capable of reading LTO-7 media initialized as LTO-7 Type M media. If backward read in LTO-9 drives is required LTO-8 media should be used instead.
Question: Will LTO-7 Type M media support LTO format existing features?
Answer: Yes, LTO-7 Type M media will support existing LTO format features including data compression, encryption and partitioning enabling LTFS. LTO-7 Type M media will not be supported on WORM cartridges.
