Linear Tape File System (LTFS) - What is it and why is it important?

Tape-based storage is more relevant today than ever before. Depending on the application and overall environment, tape can be an optimal choice for Backup & Disaster Recovery.  Tape especially shines for large-scale, long-term archiving. When implementing an active archive strategy, tape has significant advantages over disk, both in cost and functionality. Now that software exists to make tape a first-class online storage target, the cost savings—in particular, the greatly reduced power and cooling expenses—and the benefits of being able to create a portable off-line copy of invaluable data are too great to ignore.

Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is a self describing tape file system that enables tape media to be mounted and read by the operating system when the cartridge is inserted into the tape drive. The LTO-5 specification includes the ability to partition a tape into two segments. A small partition is used to store index information and the of the other, larger partition, is used to store user data.  no particular application is needed to figure out what’s on the tape because the contents of the second partition are described by the index and metadata in the first partition.

A tape formatted with LTFS looks just like an ordinary file system; it can be mounted like any hard drive or thumb-drive. (Drivers are available for OS X, Windows, and Linux.) Users can even drag-and-drop files to and from a mounted LTFS formatted tape. See Diagram

Customer Benefits:

Requirements for IBM LTFS are IBM LTO-5 drives and LTO5 media. LTFS will provide the following customer benefits:

· Reduce Costs: An IBM LTFS archive solution  is considerably less expensive than a comparable disk-only archive solution

· Ease of Use: –Allows users to read / write, catalog, search data on LTO-5 tape cartridges and libraries using a familiar browser directory tree graphical interface

· Single Standard of Media: Tapes can be moved easily (from one site to another) while files on tape can be accessed using straightforward drag-and drop.

For archival data - which does not need to be retrieved frequently or in a hurry—LTO-5  storage will continue to be a natural choice because  it remains a lower cost and more secure alternative than keeping the same data online.  The Linear Tape File System feature  makes it possible for users or applications to easily store data to tape from their desktop. The two in conjunction casts an entirely new light on the future of tape.

For more information, contact your IBM Storage Representative or click on the following link:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/storage/tape/ltfs/