page_title: Linear Tape-Open
section_title: Leader pin
hierarchical_section_title: Linear Tape-Open / Cartridges / Leader pin
caption_attribution_description: English: Leader pin on the end of the tape inside an LTO cartridge
context_page_description: Linear Tape-Open is a magnetic tape data storage technology originally developed in the late 1990s as an open standards alternative to the proprietary magnetic tape formats that were available at the time. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, and Quantum control the LTO Consortium, which directs development and manages licensing and certification of media and mechanism manufacturers.
  The standard form-factor of LTO technology goes by the name Ultrium, the original version of which was released in 2000 and can hold 100 GB of data in a cartridge. The eighth generation of LTO Ultrium was released in 2017 and can hold 12 TB in a cartridge of the same size.
  Upon introduction, LTO Ultrium rapidly defined the super tape market segment and has consistently been the best-selling super tape format. LTO is widely used with small and large computer systems, especially for backup.
context_section_description: The tape inside an LTO cartridge is wound around a single reel. The end of the tape is attached to a perpendicular leader pin that is used by an LTO drive to reliably grasp the end of the tape and mount it in a take-up reel inside the drive. Older single-reel tape technologies, such as 9 track tape and DLT, used different means to load tape onto a take-up reel.
  When a cartridge is not in a drive, the pin is held in place at the opening of the cartridge with a small spring. A common reason for a cartridge failing to load into a drive is the misplacement of the leader pin as a result of the cartridge having been dropped. The plastic slot where the pin is normally held is deformed by the drop and the leader pin is no longer in the position that the drive expects it to be.
caption: Leader pin on the end of a length of LTO tape
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