LTO Ultrium Data Cartridge :Technology

From the first Reel-to-Reel tape for broadcast to home-use video cassettes, and now high-capacity recording media, Fujifilm never stopped evolving its technology that was cultivated from the photography field. Originated in Japan, Fujifilm has become the world No.1 media manufacturer with a 60% share of LTO production.

Technological innovation paves way to higher-capacity.

Since 1954, we have promoted innovation to develop finer magnetic materials which leads to thinner LTO tapes with higher capacities.

Micronization of magnetic material

By making the magnetic material finer, more magnetic material can be spread on the same area.

As a result, the recording density is greatly increased, and tape capacity can be dramatically increased.

Compared to Metal Particle(MP) size of 40-100 nm, Barium Ferrite(BaFe) used for LTO6 to LTO9 is 20 nm. The latest Strontium Ferrite(SrFe) has been successfully developed by atomizing BaFe into about 60% or less.

Through joint research with IBM, SrFe's potential has been demonstrated as a future technology that achieves uncompressed capacity of 580TB per cartridge.

Reducing the thickness of the magnetic layer

LTO tape is an aggregate of micro particles which is characterized by nano level precision.

NANOCUBIC Technology evolves continually. We are able to evenly disperse micronized magnetic material at the nano-particle level (Fig. 1). The ultra thin coating technology that assures a uniform, ultra-smooth coating film at the nano level. (Fig. 2)

Fig. 1

Fig. 2 Our Magnetic Layer Thickness =For example,It's like spreading 1 liter of paint over an area the size of 4 football fleads!

A2. No, it’s actually faster than other media storage. The larger amount of transferred data , the higher the data transfer rate is.

The data transfer rate of LTO9 is 400MB/sec for both read and write. With this access speed in mind, tapes are specifically advantageous compared to hard disk when transferring large amounts of data. Furthermore, compared to other medias whose speed slows down when writing data, the LTO write speed remains as fast as 400MB/sec.

Highest Sustained Data Transfer Speed

* An internal investigation

A3．Compared to Digital Linear Tapes(DLT) , the return rate of the modern LTO tape is less than 10%.

With Old tape (ex.DLT), the edges of the tape could be damaged in the drive. This caused tape tearing and tangling. However, with innovations in both tapes and drives, the chances of physical damages to tapes are much lower now.

Changes in Tape Failure Rates

A4．There is no need to rewind.

When media was stored on tapes previously, they would have to be rewound due to the risk of the tape sticking to itself.

Today, no damage occurs even if the tape is left wound for long times due to improvements in tape materials, the stability of the magnetic layers, lower tape tension (relaxing the tightness in winding), and technologies such as back-coating（Fig.3）.

Fig.3 Apply back-coating to keep tape from twisting up

FUJIFILM Tape Media's Quality Assurance Philosophy for Manufacturing

1. Standardized Conditions = Standardized Quality

If you use only raw materials of uniform quality and conduct production under the identical conditions every time, you will always make products of uniform quality.
If all production conditions, materials and activities are standardized and conducted within tolerance specification ranges, uniform quality in production will be achieved.

2. Built-in QA Process

Our production process has a zero-defect tolerance: Production processes are standardized according to SOPs.
Remove defective product before it can proceed to the next step in the production process: eliminate it from our processes and allow only non-defective product into the production flow.

Production process of LTO tape /Employ a QA system

LTO Ultrium Data Cartridge - Technology

Q1. How long will LTO tape last?

Q2. Read/write data on tape takes time and tape transfer rate is slow, right?

Q3. Is it true that there are a lot of failures caused by tearing or tangling tape?

Q4. Do I have to rewind tapes?

News from Tokyo Headquarters