February 27, 2007
Sony enters the final stage for commercialisation of LTO Ultrium4 tape cartridge
Sony Corporation has acquired the LTO Ultrium4 tape cartridge format license and submitted samples for "Media Compliance Testing", expecting cartridges to ship later this year.
On February 9, 2007, Sony Corporation acquired the LTO Ultrium4 tape cartridge format license from the LTO TPCs (Technology Provider Companies), a technology consortium comprised of HP, IBM and Quantum. Sony has also submitted LTO Ultrium4 tape cartridge samples to MAC (Measurement Analysis Corporation) for media compliance testing. MAC is entrusted with research and evaluation by the TPCs. Sony plans to introduce LTO Ultrium4 tape cartridges later this spring, immediately after testing is successfully concluded.
Says Lawrence Tang, Sony Storage Media Regional Marketing Department at Sony Electronics Asia Pacific Pte Ltd: "The imminent availability of Sony's LTO4 media will enhance its current LTO Ultrium1, 2, and 3 tape cartridge offerings by bolstering speed, doubling capacity and increasing reliability. LTO4 cartridges also offer superb cost efficiency advantages that resellers can extend to new and existing customers."
"Businesses can also further enhance compliance through the Write Once Read Many (WORM) feature, creating secure archiving and eliminating the chance of data being over-written or erased. To address security concern, LTO Ultrium generation 4 tape drive technology is planned to feature encryption capabilities by enabling the writing of encrypted data to the LTO Ultrium tape cartridge and the management of encryption keys to help protect the storage and transport of sensitive information. "
Sony's high-reliability LTO Ultrium1, 2, and 3 tape cartridges are being used in a variety of fields worldwide, including the insurance, broadcast, banking, and healthcare industries.
"Sony succeeded in developing the highly reliable LTO Ultrium4 cartridge by utilising newly developed ultra-thin magnetic particles and a high thermal stability binder, combining Sony's unique cutting-edge despersing technology, thin-layer coating technology and a surface smoothing process," says Takahiro Miyazaki, Senior General Manager of the Tape Media Division at Sony Corporation.
Through integration of its research, development and production technology, Sony is aiming for the first commercialisation of LTO Ultrium4 tape cartridges.
LTO Ultrium is a trademark of Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Quantum
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