The Best Solution for the LTO 8 Tape Shortage

Do you Have an LTO 8 tape drive but can’t find any LTO 8 Tapes!  You are not alone.  A patent infringement lawsuit between Sony and FujiFilm has temporarily stopped the import of all LTO 8 tapes into the United States.  There is a solution that will help you!  LTO 7 Type M Media/Tapes.

The LTO Program has introduced a new capability for LTO-8 drives: The ability of an LTO-8 drive to write and read 9 TB (or up to 22.5TB compressed @ 2.5:1) on a brand new LTO-7 tape cartridge instead of the 6 TB specified by the LTO-7 format.   This LTO 7 tape is known as LTO-7 Type M media and it has a barcode label with a M8 Media Identifier.    Type M cartridges can only be initialized in libraries or autoloaders.  Although standalone LTO-8 drives cannot initialize Type M cartridges, they can read and write LTO-7 Type M cartridges that have been initialized in a library or autoloader.

Information about LTO 7 Type M Media

• LTO 7Type M Media can only be created from new, unused LTO-7 media. Only new,unused LTO-7 cartridges may be initialized as LTO-7 Type M. Once a cartridge is initialized as Type M it may not be changed back to a standard LTO-7 cartridge.
• Can only initialized by an LTO-8 tape library or autoloader.  LTO-7 Type M cartridges can only initialized as Type M in an LTO-8 drive within a tape library that has been configured to initialize cartridges with a M8 bar code to Type M.  
• Will not be compatible with LTO-9 Drives. There is no commitment by the LTO manufacturers to support LTO-7 Type M media in LTO-9 drives. If LTO-9 backward compatibility is required, then only new LTO-8 12 TB native media should be utilized.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Question: What’s the difference between standard LTO-7 and LTO-7 Type M media?

Answer: LTO-7 Type M media is created from standard LTO-7 read/write media during the initialization process. This process sets up different information in the cartridge memory and allows an LTO-8 drive to write 50% more tracks than on standard LTO-7 cartridges.

The data is written at the same linear density as LTO-7. The LTO-8 drive has narrower read heads than LTO-7, so it is able to read the resulting narrower tracks. However, the read heads in the LTO-7 drive are too wide to read these narrow tracks. The bar code label ending in “M8” is used to give a visual difference between the two cartridges.

An LTO-7 Type M cartridge also has a unique density code in the cartridge memory. Software that has enabled Type M cartridges uses this density code to identify the cartridge and correctly deal with the amount of data that can be written to it. The Appendix contains a table of possible states of cartridges correctly and incorrectly labeled.

Question: What is an LTO 7 tape cartridge initialized as LTO-7 Type M media?

Answer:  LTO-7 Type M media is a standard LTO Ultrium 7 tape that has been labeled with a barcode label ending with the last 2 characters “M8” and initialized in an LTO 8 library autoloader at the higher Type M density. This LTO-7 Type M tape media will have 9TB native capacity or up to 22.5TB (compressed @ 2.5:1).

Q: When is LTO-7 Type M media initialized?

Answer: LTO 7 Tape Media can be purchased as pre-initialized LTO-7 Type M media or as un-initialized LT0-7 media. Un-initialized LTO-7 media can be initialized as LTO-7 Type M media by applying an “M8” barcode label and writing data to the media in a tape library or autoloader that supports un-initialized LTO-7 Type M media.

Q: Is LTO-7 Type M media interchangeable among different LTO-8 manufacture’s drives?

Answer: Yes, LTO-7 Type M tape media behaves exactly as standard cartridges in terms of vendor compatibility. Irrespective of the drive manufacturer that initializes the cartridge, an LTO-7 Type M media can be used in any other LTO-8 drive manufacturer.

Question: Can previously used LTO-7 media be converted to LTO-7 Type M media?

Answer: No, the LTO-7 Type M media can only be created with new, un-initialized media.

Question: Do all LTO-8 tape library products support LTO-7 Type M media?

Answer: This depends on the LTO-8 tape library vendor. Please consult your product documentation.

Question: Do all LTO-8 standalone tape drives (i.e. not installed in a library) support previously initialized LTO-7 Type M media?

Answer: Yes. However, keep in mind that if you insert an LTO 7 Tape that has not been initialized as Type M Media into a standalone LTO-8 tape drive, it will initialize the new, un-initialized LTO-7 media as LTO-7 Type A media (6 TB native) regardless of the barcode label that is applied.

Question. Can I initialize Type M media in a standalone drive?

Answer: No, you cannot initialize Type M media in standalone drives. LTO-7 Type M cartridges must be initialized in a library that supports LTO-7 Type M. The library makes the decision on the type of cartridge based upon the cartridge bar code – if the last two characters are “M8” it will be initialized as Type M, otherwise it will be initialized as a normal LTO-7 cartridge.

Question: What happens if an LTO-7 Type M media is loaded into an LTO-7 tape drive?

Answer: The drive will post an error message indicating that the cartridge format is incompatible and will not thread the media. In other words, an LTO-7 tape drive will not be able to load an LTO-7 Type M media.

Question: Will LTO-9 tape drives be backward compatible with LTO-7 Type M media?

Answer: No. Only LT0-8 Drives will be capable of reading LTO-7 media initialized as LTO-7 Type M media. If backward read in LTO-9 drives is required LTO-8 media should be used instead.

Question: Will LTO-7 Type M media support LTO format existing features?

Answer: Yes, LTO-7 Type M media will support existing LTO format features including data compression, encryption and partitioning enabling LTFS. LTO-7 Type M media will not be supported on WORM cartridges.