Sun Microsystems SL500 manual LTO Tape Drives and Cartridges

Tape Drives and Cartridges

LTO Tape Drives and Cartridges

Note – LTO technology was developed by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Seagate. LTO is an “open format’ technology, which means that users have multiple sources of product and media.

This section discusses media compatibility and cartridge labels. For all other tape drive and media information, such as specifications, refer to:

■The specific vender Web site

■http://www.sun.com/storagetek/index.jsp

For best results, match the cartridges with the specific drive type (for example, use LTO 2 cartridges in Gen 2 drives):

The following table lists the compatibility issues among the various LTO cartridges and tape drives. Although SL500 does not support Gen 1 drives, the column is listed for you to consider if you need to migrate your data from older types of cartridges to newer ones.

TABLE 1-8 LTO Media/Tape Drive Compatibility

Media	Label	Gen 1 Drive	Gen 2 Drive	Gen 3 Drive	Gen 4* Drive
LTO 1	L1	Read and write	Read and write	Read only	Non
					applicable
LTO 2	L2	Non applicable	Read and write	Read and	Read only
				write
LTO 3	L3	Non applicable	Non applicable	Read and	Read and
				write	write
LTO 4	L4	Non applicable	Non applicable	Non	Read and
				applicable	write
WORM	LT	Non applicable	Non applicable	Read and	Read and
(400 GB)				write	write
WORM	LU	Non applicable	Non applicable	Non	Read and
(800 GB)				applicable	write

Note: When available. LTO 4 drives are supported with library firmware 1126 and later.

Note – LTO 3 drives can accept 400 GB WORM (Write Once Read Many) cartridges. LTO 4 drives can also accept these plus the 800 GB WORM cartridges.

16 SL500 User’s Guide • July 2008 Revision: KA • 96116