Over the past 30 years, there have been numerous magnetic tape formats. Nearly all have been retired, leaving three formats: Linear Tape Open (LTO), which is an open standard; and IBM 3592/TS11xx and Oracle 9840, 9940, and T10000 proprietary formats, which are also marketed as “enterprise tape drives.” In the past, differences in performance, capacity, and reliability earned the proprietary formats the term “enterprise,” but today this is no longer true.
With its advanced features and specifications, LTO has matched and in many cases exceeded the performance and capacity of these proprietary tape formats. LTO is an “open standard,” with LTO tape drives and media developed and manufactured by the LTO Consortium. LTO has always had a price advantage—and with multiple vendors promoting the technology, the LTO Consortium has been aggressive in developing new features. Now that LTO technology is equal or superior to enterprise tape, it is clearly the best choice when customers need to expand or migrate from proprietary tape due to higher costs or end-of-life concerns.
