LTO Puts It On The Line!

Can the troika compete with SDLT--and each other?

Some of the industry's biggest players combined forces to create Ultrium, a breakthrough in mid-range tape solutions that provides its users with bigger capacity and better performance. The name of the technology is LTO and the players are Seagate, HP, and IBM.

The rules of the game for the troika were to build a product competitive with Quantum's SDLT and then compete against each other. This balancing act between collaboration and competition is coined co-opetition. "We cooperate in everything to do with definition of format, the licensing of the format and with underlying tape technology. And we pretty much compete everywhere else," said Tony Rush, marketing manager for tape technology at Hewlett Packard.

LTO currently has 30 licensees including HP, IBM, and Seagate (tape drives), Maxell, Fujifilm, TDK, and Imation, Sony, Emtec, Verbatim, and Quantum (tape media), Qualstar and other automation vendors, as well as Plasmon, Philips and Mitsumi, among others (for complete listing, visit our website: www.wwpi.com).

To receive the Ultrium logo, each company must comply with a set of technical specifications verified by the Measurement Analysis Corporation. Once they receive the go-ahead, the individual manufacturer has the choice of adding unique features. By placing the focus on product rather than format, LTO hopes to give tape users greater choice and freedom when deciding which Ultrium to purchase.

Hewlett Packard is offering both full and half height servers, called Hewlett Packard SureStore Ultrium 230 and 215, respectively. The half height model runs slightly slower than the full height. Data Rate Matching is a feature unique to HP and enables users to vary the speed of the tape drive to match speed of the data coming off the server, thereby increasing overall speed of backup. In addition, DRM allows tape to slow slightly, instead of coming to a complete stop, thereby minimizing damage to rollers and motors. Another way HP aims to increase longevity is by reducing power consumption. "It's part of engineering design and philosophy of our drives to minimize heat dissipation," Rush said. In the automation arena, HP offers a variety of scalable libraries that ranges from a 2-drive 20-slot to 12-drive 120-slots. HP is currently partnered with StorageTek.

IBM, like Hewlett Packard and Seagate, is concerned with minimizing tape damage. IBM's Surface Control Guiding reduces tape breakage by eliminating use of tape edge to move tape. Another key difference created to reduce the opportunity for tape to collect on head surface is the design of the tape head itself, which is flathead with fewer slots. To optimize the LTO drive when used in library or autoloader, the Controlled Eject Position locks the tape cartridge into the same place every time. And to ensure physical reliability, IBM uses a high percentage of stainless steel and metal. Finally, IBM's Ultrium is also built to minimize heat. "Power reduction is key," said David Walling, IBM's director for the LTO product line. We will continue to focus on optimizing our drive in a good tradeoff between performance and power," he added.

Seagate's Viper 200 family, based on Ultrium, includes internal and external drives. Seagate hopes to increase tape wearability with FastSense, a feature that monitors incoming data rate from the host, thus minimizing back hitching. Seagate's first 7200 rpm ran very hot and was the impetus for the company to focus on creating heat reducing technology. The Viper 200 incorporates this technology to ensure that the drive remains cool. "ITs can feel comfortable adopting Viper because many of its core technologies have existed for more than a decade," said Brad Renfree, Seagate's director of the LTO product line. Viper is designed specifically for automation and is currently shipping to Overland Data.

Though Seagate's Viper, IBM's Ultrium, and HP's SureStore products offer key differences, all Ultrium products must provide the following:

Dynamic Power Down. In the event of power loss, Ultrium contains a small amount of power in the electronic part of the drive to simultaneously decrease the speed of both reels. When power is restored, tape is capable of being ejected and re-used.

Backward read and write compatibility. All Ultrium tape drives must ensure that a cartridge written from one drive can be read from and then transported to another drive.

Power Reduction. Since heat is the primary reason for premature drive failure, LTO focused on minimizing heat with Ultrium.

LTO made its debut at Fall Comdex 2000, where the partners aimed to demonstrate the value of media interchangeability to the OEM channel and end users. "We have had unexpectedly high interest from most OEMs," Rush said. "I think almost every system OEM has either publicly or privately expressed the intention to offer Ultrium drives," Rush said. Furthermore, vertical markets like banking, multimedia, geophysical, and exploration industries have shown considerable interest in Ultrium, according to Renfree.

In addition to its success in the U.S, LTO is reporting success in the European market as well. "We are seeing that the branded channel business is very strong in Europe," Rush said. LTO plans to provide a solution for the increased demands on data backup and archiving. The amount of data end users will have to store could be growing 65 to 100 percent per year according to Wallace (IBM). LTO partners will collaborate for an additional three generations, delivering up to 1.6TB a cartridge. The technology trio is also working on Accelis, a single reel format. By building tape that is faster, bigger, and more reliable, LTO aims to produce a solution more compelling than that of SDLT. "Ultrium is here, it's now, it's shipping, and it works," Rush said.