Spectra: Buy LTO-5 now, swap for LTO-6 later

Spectra Logic announced a program this week allowing buyers of its LTO-5 tape drives to swap the units for LTO-6 machines expected to be released later this year.

Spectra says for some of its tape libraries – including the T200, T300, T680 and T950 – the LTO-6 standard allows the company to boost capacity from LTO-5’s 3 TB to a compressed 8 TB of storage, plus increase data transfer rates from 280 MB per second to  a compressed 525 MB per second.

They will also be equipped with native 8 gigabit Fibre Channel interfaces that are also compatible with 2-, 4- and 8 gigabit FC switches and host bus adapters. The company’s T120 and T150e libraries will offer either 8 gigabit Fibre Channel or 6 gigabit SAS interfaces.

The company said their LTO-6 machines will be compatible with the older LTO-4 and LTO-5 tapes, and will operate with Spectra’s BlueScale library management software.