LTO8, LTO Ultrium 8 Data Cartridges
The LTO8 tapes have been released with a capacity of up to 12TB native and up to 30TB compressed. BREAKING NEWS: The LTO8 tapes are now in short supply and won't be produced again until next year. This is due to legal battles between the two major tape manufacturers. Click to see the Bloomberg text and audio article on this issue. LTO8 tape library owners will have to use the new tape called the 'M' or M8 tape. Everyone else will need to get preformatted LTO7 M8 tapes or use LTO7 tapes. The 'M' tape is created by providing a NEW LTO7 tape that can be formatted in most LTO Ultrium 8 tape library drives, but must have a special tape barcode label applied and the latest firmware for the drives in the library, and the library itself to do this! Always check with the manufacturer of your LTO8 library or drive as some models have this feature before others. The LTO8 'M' tape will have a capacity of up to 9TB native and up to 22.5TB compressed. This will be the best value per TB for your new LTO8 drives but the LTO8 tape itself will be the highest capacity. Both the LTO8 M8 tape and the LTO8 tape itself have the same speed for read and write. The new LTO8 drives will be able to read and write to LTO7 tapes, the new LTO8 'M' tapes and the new LTO8 tapes. Please note that LTO8 drives will not be able to read or write to LTO6 tapes which is the first time ever an LTO drive cannot read back two generations!
