Quantum Extends Tape Automation Leadership with Availability of LTO-4 Technology

press-release
Friday, 08 June 2007 07:42

Quantum Corp. (NYSE:QTM), the leading global specialist in backup, recovery and archive, today announced the availability of LTO-4 tape drives and media in its market-leading tape automation portfolio, beginning with the Scalar® i2000 and Scalar® i500 intelligent library platforms. LTO-4 secures and protects business-critical data with industry standard encryption capabilities and is the first open systems tape drive technology to incorporate native encryption. LTO-4 also doubles the native capacity of the previous generation LTO-3 to 800 GB and reaches native performance levels of up to 120 MB/sec, fifty percent faster than its predecessor.

With the growing popularity of disk-based backup and recovery solutions and the continued consolidation of tape library resources, tape is increasingly taking on a more specialised role in data protection. In many cases, customers are using tape primarily for disaster recovery. Tape offers high capacity, portability, low cost per gigabyte, and suitability for long-term, energy-efficient archive, making it an optimal solution. In many other cases, tape is playing a centralised backup role, where there is a continued need for high performance. Regardless of how tape is used, however, customers are facing stringent government regulations related to the safeguarding of sensitive records and especially the protection of data assets during transport and long-term storage.

The incorporation of LTO-4 into Quantum’s intelligent, high density and high performance Scalar library platforms addresses this evolving set of customer needs while providing the added value of Quantum’s comprehensive approach to library management through its iLayer® technology, dramatically improving user visibility and diagnostic capabilities.

"Corporations must retain data for long periods of time and ensure compliance with internal service level agreements and government regulations," said Mark Eastman, product line director, Tape Automation Systems for Quantum. "As a result, customers are demanding higher security, capacity, performance and reliability across their tape investments. Quantum’s industry-leading automation platforms incorporating the latest generation LTO-4 technology deliver on these important features."

By providing native, industry standard encryption on the tape drive, LTO-4 is designed to prevent the data stored on the tape media from being accessed by unauthorised parties. With the adoption of industry standard encryption, Quantum customers can also have peace of mind that data assets can be decrypted in future years. And by offering strong AES 256-bit native encryption, LTO-4 allows customers to take full advantage of drive performance and compression. They are no longer forced to choose between performance, compression or encryption, which is especially important in enterprise environments where tape library resources must securely back up and protect many terabytes of data in a single backup window.

LTO-4 technology ensures both forward and backward compatibility, as well as interchangeability across manufacturers. Customers can seamlessly upgrade to LTO-4 with backward read-and-write compatibility to LTO-3 and backward read to LTO-2. Each LTO-4 tape carries its own file system directory, allowing direct drag-and-drop access by applications and operating systems.

Availability

LTO-4 drives are currently available for Quantum’s enterprise-class Scalar i2000 and mid-range Scalar i500 tape libraries. The company plans to include the drive technology across other tape systems later this year. For more information on Quantum’s automation portfolio featuring LTO-4, please visit: http://www.quantum.com/Products/TapeLibraries/Index.aspx. For more information on purchasing Quantum LTO Ultrium 4 media cartridges, please visit: http://www.quantum.com/Products/Media/Index.aspx.

About Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Technology

LTO technology is a powerful, scaleable, adaptable open tape format created by technology providers HP, IBM Corp. and Quantum Corp. (and their predecessors) to help address the growing demands of data protection in midrange to enterprise-class server environments. This ultra-high capacity generation of tape storage products is designed to deliver outstanding performance, capacity and reliability, combining the advantages of linear multi-channel, bi-directional formats with enhancements in servo technology, data compression, track layout, and error correction.

About Quantum

Quantum Corp. (NYSE:QTM) is the leading global storage company specializing in backup, recovery and archive. Combining focused expertise, customer-driven innovation, and platform independence, Quantum provides a comprehensive, integrated range of disk, tape, and software solutions supported by a world-class sales and service organization. As a long-standing and trusted partner, the company works closely with a broad network of resellers, OEMs and other suppliers to meet customers’ evolving data protection needs. Quantum Corp., 1650 Technology Drive, Suite 700, San Jose, CA 95110, (408) 944-4000, www.quantum.com .

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iLayer, Scalar i500, Scalar i2000, Quantum and the Quantum logo are registered trademarks of Quantum Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact:

Rebecca Blasina

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