New Mechanism of IBM LTO-4 Tape Media

The data tracks in LTO-4 and LTO-3 are 704 and that of ultrium-2 data tracks are 512. The IBM LTO 4 tape drive has new mechanism for the tape's guidance along tape path. This new mechanism is “surface control guiding" and is patented by IBM. For controlling the tape motion, this new mechanism uses the tape's surface instead of the edges. In this way the tape debris & tape damage most importantly of the tape edges are reduced. MR (Magneto Resistive) head design is used in the IBM ultrium4 tape drive for the purpose of minimizing the debris accumulation, contact and tape's wear because of its movement over write/read heads.

The IBM LTO-4 drive has the new technology that matches dynamic speed at any of the 6 speeds of 30MB/sec, 48MB/sec, 66MB/sec, 84MB/sec, 103MB/sec, or 120MB/sec. This speed matching is done for the adjustment of native data speed of the tape drive as close as possible with the net data rate of the host. The host's net data speed is that which is achieved after the factoring out of data compressibility. So, the performance improves and back hitch repositions also reduce. The range of speed matching on the ultrium4 is 30MB/sec to 120MB/sec and that of ultrium3 is 30MB/sec to 80MB/sec. The components of IBM LTO-4 drive are robust that are best for the automation environments.

The components that increase the life and reliability of the IBM tape drive are the single circuit card, metal clutch, design of leader block and the ball bearings of steel in the loader. The power management mechanism of IBM ultrium4 drive controls the electronics of the tape drive. The electronics of tape drive will either turn off completely in mode of low power when there is no need of circuit functions for the drive operation.

In IBM drive the multiple file-marks are written separately that contains all the file marks afterwards the first. The advantages of this feature are that it helps to enhance the performance in case if the subsequent append is overwritten somewhere afterwards the first file mark, and the multiple file marks indicate the point where the append operation can take place after 1st of file marks. So, the users can avoid from rewriting the data sets that contain first file mark & the customer's data in case if such type of append occurs.

IBM ultrium drive has the data compression (LTO-DC) technology which is the implementation of data compression LZ1 Lempel-Ziv class1 algorithm. Extension of the ALDC (Adaptive Loss less Data Compression) is the LTO-DC algorithm. Scheme-Swapping is also patented by IBM, it looks ahead at the data incoming and determines the storage method that is most efficient (pass threw mode or ALDC). Therefore, the data throughput is increased and offers optimal compression of data.

The LTO data cartridge has a cartridge memory which is contact-less and passive storage device of silicon. It is physical part of LTO tape cartridge. The LTO cartridge memory holds the information about data on media and that specific cartridge's media. The cartridge memory has capacity of 8K bytes. The tape drive transmits a RF-field of low level to the cartridge. This RF-field helps the communication between LTO-CM & the tape drive.

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