LTO has established an alternative to Super DLTtape. All three companies have released products based on the first generation of LTO technology, dubbed Ultrium. These devices store 100GB of data per cartridge and can transfer data at speeds as fast as 16MBps. The sleeper in the linear tape market is Benchmark, an independent manufacturer of tape drives that use DLT media. In the years to come, helical scan technology will likely face a rough time in the enterprise.
Ultrium tapes are about twice as expensive, but they also hold about twice as much data.
There simply is not much to recommend 8mm tapes anymore, at least not in an enterprise setting. Moving forward, we expect the headlines will belong to Quantum and the LTO triumvirate of IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Seagate. But Quantum's considerable track record of reliability, coupled with the huge inventories of recorded DLT media that many companies maintain, could make LTO Ultrium drives a tough sell in the enterprise market, despite Ultrium's competitive pricing. The struggle for enterprise dollars could go on indefinitely because Quantum and LTO have aggressive plans to increase the capacity and performance of Super DLTtape and Ultrium devices. This is just the start of linear tape's technological leapfrogging.