LTO6 from Tape ServicesAccording to the LTO Program it is. This LTO collaboration between HP, IBM, and Quatum recently released that the price of LTO-6 has fallen below a penny per gigabyte (GB), translating into roughly $8 per terabyte (TB) of data storage. Not only is this platform cost effective, but it is also one of the most reliable sources for long-term data storage, especially for those organizations with high volume data inventories.

Does a penny per gigabyte sound too good to be true? What this number doesn't factor in the price of the tape cartridge itself. A typical LTO cartridge costs around the $50 range, a far cry from the pocket change of the storage itself. While this price tag may significantly higher, the overall cost of the LTO-6 platform is still one of the most economical and affordable available in the market of long-term data storage.

Another factor that contributes to the ground level costs of LTO-6 is assuming the use of the cartridge’s total compressed storage capacity. The LTO-6 generation can hold up to 6.25 TB of compressed data, with compatible drives transferring a total of about 1.4 TB worth of data per hour. Utilizing the compressed capacity of LTO tape allows organizations to store higher volumes of data in a smaller amount of space for a longer period of time, significantly cutting data costs even further for years to come.

With numbers like these, disk systems cannot even begin to compete with LTO platforms as far as costs and energy usage is concerned. The same amount of data storage on disk can cost upwards of 100 times as much as energy than LTO tape systems alone. As technology grows and advances at an exponential rate, tape continues to hold its own, and dominate the marketplace in both cost and performance. Now tell me, what can your data storage do for you?

For more information about LTO-6 or additional tape storage solutions, contact Tape Services Inc. at 1-800-370-TAPE.

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