Fujitsu upgrades its entry-level tape libraries with next-generation tape drives

Tokyo, August 10, 2010

Fujitsu today announced that its ETERNUS LT20, LT40 and LT60 tape libraries will be equipped with the next generation of LTO tape drives, LTO-5. By incorporating the brand new tape drive technology, Fujitsu's well-proven entry-level ETERNUS LT models will speed up reading or writing on tape, while at the same time reduce the required number of media slots and, consequently, costs for storing data with its higher capacities.

Customers will benefit from the technology upgrade in many ways: providing up to 3 TB of storage capacity, as each LTO-5 tape reduces the number of tapes needed in total and enables industry leading capacities of almost twice that of LTO-4 and four times that of LTO-3. This means more data can be stored in the same library footprint, saving on power, cooling and deferring library upgrades. But this improvement does not only mean less cost for tapes: for customers that want to invest in a completely new infrastructure, it means a much smaller system with more capacity on less tape. In total, the new technology is expected to cut down spending on media at around 63 percent.

Energy efficiency is a further benefit: LTO-5 drives provide power savings even with performance increase compared to the previous generations. The new drives offer faster throughput, expanded speed matching and increased data buffer size, and are therefore a central component of a more powerful, capable backup solution. In terms of security, LTO-5 drives help address compliance requirements with its WORM (Write Once, Read Many) and encryption capability.

At the same time, customers with an existing infrastructure can rely on a future-proof concept: LTO standards-compatibility helps offer long-term tape infrastructure investment protection, as it provides the capability to read LTO-3 and read as well as write LTO-4 media.

Jens Peter Seick, Senior Vice President Datacenter Systems Product Division at Fujitsu Technology Solutions says: "The new LTO-5 underlines once again the power of innovation that drives tape technology. Just as it was with the previous generations, we are now ready - after a number of comprehensive tests - to offer our customers LTO-5 at a very early stage. Small and medium-sized companies especially will benefit from the tremendously increased capacity of the new tape drives, which enables companies to bring their storage architecture up to date and save storage costs."

The ETERNUS LT20, LT40 and LT60 tape libraries with the new LTO tape drives will be available worldwide starting today.