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Status Planned for future release
Workspace Linear Tape-Open
Created by Guest
Created on Jan 4, 2024

Faster fiber channel interfaces for LTO drives

Recent generations of proprietary IBM tape formats (TS1160 and TS1170) support 16 Gbps, we would like to see LTO drives support this as well.

16 Gbps (or faster) Fiber Channel interfaces are necessary to get full performance from modern LTO drives and media. Our IBM i database workloads compress to LTO tape at 4:1 or higher, meaning that an 8 Gbps fiber channel interface the maximum theoretical rate of 1 GB/s from host to drive will compress to only 250 MB/s written to the physical tape -- well under the physical performance limit of full height drives at LTO generations 7, 8, or 9. This results in having to parallelize across more tape drives, increasing costs and complexity of our environment.

Idea priority High
  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Jul 12, 2024

    I think it would be good to create a unique IBM tape library as a library device, not just a single drive. For example, it would be good to have a product that supports 100Gb iscsi and uses SSD as a cache for this purpose.

  • Admin
    CARLOS SANDOVAL CASTRO
    Reply
    |
    Jan 10, 2024

    This request is a candidate for a future generally available (GA) release. Advancing the server connectivity technology is planned for future generations of the LTO tape drive format. There is no plan to update the technology on LTO generations currently in the field.

    IBM's statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at IBM's sole discretion. IBM will update this request to reflect any changes.