The LTO Program Technology Provider Companies (TPCs), Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM Corporation and Quantum, have announced Fujifilm and Sony are now licensees of Generation 8 technology, meaning that both companies are planning to produce LTO-8 media moving forward. Products from these two companies will be officially certified by the TPCs, with global availability of Generation 8 media anticipated in fourth quarter 2019.

With up to 30TB* of compressed capacity and up to 750 MB/s* data transfer rates, LTO Generation 8 pushes innovation as the latest in tape technology.

In addition, LTO-4, LTO-5, LTO-6 and LTO-7 media are generally available and continue to provide an excellent value for customers looking for long term storage for retention and compliance, for protection against ransomware, and for cold storage of large unstructured datasets.

“We are pleased to have two licensees for tape solutions allowing us to deliver more product to market, and enabling us to once again provide tape technology solutions, including LTO generation 8, to our partners and end-users,” said Eric Bassier, Senior Director, Quantum, “As part of the LTO Program, we look forward to continuing to grow tape technology capabilities to meet the growing demands of data storage and long-term data retention.”

LTO technology continues to see increased relevance across industries due to the need to house massive amounts of “cold” data, as well as a need to keep a copy of data “offline” to mitigate the threat of malware. Daily, organizations collect large amounts of data, both structured or unstructured, that need to be stored and analyzed to gain valuable insights.

With important data on-hand, it is crucial to ensure these assets remain safe. Tape uniquely offers offline protection by providing an air gap between the tape media and the computer systems - preventing systems, hackers and malware from accessing it.

Storage experts maintain that tape technology remains the most reliable and least expensive ways to retain data in addition to providing the ultimate protection from cyber-attacks.

“IDC continues to see tape as a valuable technology for any storage infrastructure,” said Phil Goodwin, Research Director, IDC. “Its low cost, secure attributes make it an ideal technology to consider for long-term storage.”

For additional information on tape technology and storage industry trends, check out white papers, articles and more at www.lto.org.

Learn more about LTO-8 media at www.lto.org/technology/lto-generation-8/.