Quantum introduces LTO-4 HH Tape Drive

BANGALORE, INDIA: Quantum Corp., the leading global specialist in backup, recovery and archive, today announced the availability of its LTO-4 Half-Height (HH) tape drive.

Well suited for midrange and enterprise customers concerned about disaster recovery and companies seeking affordable backup for their remote offices, the drive offers the same performance, security and reliability as full-height LTO-4 tape drives. In addition, the LTO-4 HH drive provides up to 800 GB native capacity and transfer rates up to 432 GB/hr - doubling the capacity and increasing the performance by 50 percent over the previous generation LTO drive - in a space-saving, half-height form factor.

"Quantum has developed an easy-to-use storage solution that offers the same performance and capacity as competitors' full-height offerings," said Kevin Koski, product manager, server storage at Equus, a Quantum reseller. "Customers not only achieve the highest in LTO-4 performance but also are able to realize the benefits associated with the smaller format taking up less data center space."

As data continues to grow, IT managers are faced with the challenge of adding storage systems to accommodate this growth while managing the power and cooling demands of these systems for cost and regulatory reasons. To help customers address this challenge Quantum's LTO-4 HH includes a feature called Green Mode, which reduces power consumption by shutting off power to components inside the drive when it's idle or on standby (not reading or writing data).

In addition, even when the drive is actively operating, the power used by Quantum's LTO-4 HH is less than many competitors' LTO-3 and LTO-4 full-height and half-height tape drives. Finally, by incorporating Quantum's exclusive FastSense variable speed feature, the company's LTO-4 HH drive maximizes the native transfer rate, completing backups faster but using less power than other LTO-4 drives on the market.

With security breaches continuing to make news headlines, data integrity and security is more important than ever. Quantum's LTO-4 HH addresses this by providing AES 256-bit native encryption, as recommended by the federal government for classified data, and WORM cartridge support. Another exclusive feature designed to make Quantum's LTO-4 HH the most reliable drive in its class is SmartVerify which concurrently verifies all data written to the tape, thus nearly eliminating the time needed to verify backup operations.

Quantum's LTO-4 HH drive is designed to be simple to install and integrate into the data center using the latest industry standard interface - Serial Attached SCSI. It also allows customers the opportunity to leverage their previous media investments with backward read-and-write compatibility to LTO-3 media and backward read compatibility to LTO-2 media.

"Organizations continue to struggle with increased data growth and retention without increased budget, and now on top of that they have the additional challenges of addressing security and power consumption," said Tom Hammond, product manager for Quantum. "As a leader in backup, recovery and archive, Quantum's LTO-4 HH provides customers a secure, high-performance tape backup solution that is reliable and power efficient - all at an affordable price."