LTO9, LTO Ultrium 9 Data Cartridges

LTO9 tapes, LTO Ultrium 9 data cartridges or LTO Ultrium format Gen 9 has up to 18TB of native capacity that can be written at a speed of up to 400MB/sec and up to 45TB of compressed capacity that can be written at a speed up to 1,000MB/sec. This is triple the LTO7 tape native capacity (6TB), double the LTO7 M8 tape native capacity (9TB) and 1.5 times the LTO8 tape native capacity (12TB).

LTO-9 drives and tapes include features, such as multi-layer security support via hardware-based encryption, WORM (Write Once, Read Many) tape option and support for Linear Tape File System (LTFS). LTO9 tape drives are fully read and write compatible with LTO-8 and LTO-9 data cartridges.

For LTO-9 tapes and drives, the LTO Consortium elected to balance cost, performance and capacity by offering an 18 TB native tape cartridge to address the current market demand for tape storage capacity. A new LTO roadmap has been established with the goal to double capacity in each generation moving forward as with past LTO Generation releases.

Magnetic tapes in particular LTO 9 Ultrium magnetic tapes are attracting increasing attention as a storage media that provides long-term storage of a large capacity of data safely and at low cost. In addition, it has a significantly lower environmental impact as there is no need to have it constantly powered on during tape storage, thereby mitigating the amount of CO₂ emissions generated by this form of data storage by 95% compared to hard disk drives. The high capacity achieved by LTO9 tape cartridges caters to the surging data storage demand amidst the rapid development of IoT technology and acceleration of Digital Transformation, and contributes to mitigating CO₂ emissions.

LTO-9 Data Cartridge Technology video