10 Reasons Why LTO Tape Is A Great Choice For Storing Data

LTO is an excellent data storage option as it is cheap, portable, fast, provides exceptional durability, secured & aims at reducing energy consumption.

With the continuous development going on in the commercial & technological sector over the last few decades, storing & sharing data has become critical. That said, Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology has played a crucial role in data storage solutions.

LTO provides reliability in terms of storing data for an extended period. Also, it is capable of holding a massive amount of data. If you want to prevent cyberattacks, introducing LTO is an effective way to opt. Although it’s an offline medium of storing data, it is user-friendly.

Linear Tape-Open (LTO)

LTO Tape may not be so modern as the disk technology to store & read data. However, with the help of the Linear Tape File System (LTFS), you can share data easily, access it whenever needed, archive upon requirements & share with no fuss.

Organizations rely upon it to store a massive amount of data. It is not prone to cyber-attacks, which is of prime concern these days for larger organizations. The recent introduction of LTO-5 & LTO-6 has enhanced the rapid transferring capability of LTO tape.

If you are still hesitating about using LTO, the following factors can help you decide-

1. Cost-Effectiveness

These days, people consider using cloud or disk storage to store huge data. However, all these data storage systems are prone to many errors.

Among them, a cyberattack is the deadliest. Besides, adopting these measures will cost you a big amount.

However, with the LTO tape, you don’t need to pay such hefty amounts. It’s cheaper than most of the traditional data storing methods. Being offline, you don’t need to pay 24/7 electricity bills for LTO tape. Also, recent stats suggest that for long-term data retention purposes, LTO is the most cost-effective approach.

By relying on LTO, you pay 86% lower than disk solutions & 66% lower than cloud storage systems.

2. Reliability

If you want to consider disk-only solutions, chances are your critical data may get hacked. Also, there’s a significant chance of getting the whole disk wiped out by viruses & malware.

If you cannot have backups, you will lose enormous money & data, not to mention the reputation involved.

However, with LTO, you have access to store data for up to 30 years with no error. Also, LTO technology comes with excellent error detection & correction algorithms. Studies show that compared to disk-only storage, LTO is four times better.

3. Huge Capacity

Storing data has always been a headache for most organizations. However, you may not access some data frequently. Even in that case, you need to ensure the safety of these infrequently accessed data. LTO offers a scalable & robust solution to store a massive pile of data.

With the latest version of LTO available in the market, you can store up to 2.5 TB of data. With this vast storage facility, you can store images, files, transaction histories, data, social conversations, incentive statuses, etc. to name only a few.

You need fewer tapes with LTO-6 because each tape comes with a 2.5 TB storage.

4. Secured Storage

LTO tape has a reputation for providing durability & security in terms of data storage. It can keep data intact & safe for 30 years. During this period, you don’t need to worry about maintenance or risks of cyberattacks.

Besides, it’s sturdiness & resilience can help you keep up with the company regulation of data retention. Again, LTFS doesn’t depend on software or hardware platforms which means data recovery is also possible. Many E-commerce companies use LTO tapes to secure consumer data.

5. Complements Disk-Only Storage

You can use both tapes & disks as data storage options. The best part of using LTO is that it can pair up with disks well. Some even consider using the mixture of both tape & disk as emergency backups.

As disk-only solutions are prone to cyberattacks, tapes can be the perfect getaway option for you in case of an emergency.

Previously, people avoided using LTO because of its inability to filter archived data. However, LTO-6 & LTO-7 have nullified the issue. Now, it’s much more user-friendly & easily accessible.

6. Impenetrable Cyberattack Protection

You will be secured by adopting LTO as your last line of defense against IT breaches & cyberattacks.

LTO ensures that it is impenetrable by malicious viruses & ransomware. That is why businesses prefer it. Even with a massive data breach, recovering data from LTO is faster than downloading from the local cloud.

7. Prioritizes Green Storage

Energy consumption has been a severe issue to tackle when it comes to data storage. LTO aims at reducing carbon footprint & energy consumption. Compared to disks, LTO reduces energy consumption by 33%. That means yearly 200 million megawatt-hours can be saved by using LTO.

As a concerned citizen, adopting LTO is the greenest approach to data storage.

8. Portability

Hard Disk Drives (HDD) can’t bear the complexities of routine transportation & are far less durable. Solid State Drive (SSD) can be the right solution. But their hefty prices mitigate effectiveness.

You can think of cloud services. But when you need to move a pile of data, using cloud storage raises the bar of security concerns. That said, LTO is the perfect solution for transferring data. It doesn’t clog the bandwidth. You can move an entire data center effortlessly by using LTO.

9. High Performance

Previously LTO didn’t do well when backing up data. But now, it can reach an astonishing speed of 360 MB/sec data transfer rate. When compressed, it gives 750 MB/sec speed that is 4-5 times more than an HDD’s data transfer rate.

10. Write Once Read Many (WORM)

The latest LTO comes with a unique feature, “Write Once Read Many” (WORM), to prevent data rewriting. Because of the one-time writing feature, you can address compliance regulations without a fuss.

Moreover, The unique algorithm of LTO can work smoothly while backing up data. It doesn’t create any undesirable quality issues to compress, performance & storage of data.

Final Thoughts

LTO is slowly marking its impact on the data storage sector. Being an offline medium & not prone to cyberattacks, it has gained much popularity in recent years. Therefore, investing in LTO is sure to bear fruits in the coming years.