Talk:Linear Tape-Open

message: I tried to follow reference 46, but the web site requested a password.  Is there an open version of these specs available?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.128.26.49 (talk) 14:17, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference 46? 

message: All capacity figures are assumed to be native capacity, uncompressed.  It doesn't make sense to compare compressed figures.  What is really getting stored on tape is just plain data.  Just because it is the output of a compression algorithm, doesn't mean anything.   Compressed figures have no place in the stat sheet.   So we have no need to say redundant things like "Native Uncompressed Capacity."  The statement is redundant.   
Yes, I hate compressed figures.  Yes, this is a rant.  Yes, I care.  Austin Murphy 19:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that native capacity must be stated.  However, I disagree that compression statistics are useless.  It represents a theoretical upper limit on the capacity of a tape.  The compression radio itself is part of the tape drive spec, taking into account memory and algorithm changes. Having said that, I have at least one LTO6 tape that claims to have 7.1T on it, although the compressed max size is 6T, so even as a max, it has to be taken with a grain of salt.  But I regularly get actual capacities of compressed tapes almost exactly between the native size and the "max" compressed size. --ssd (talk) 18:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I hate them too, but they seem to be part of the system.  They are not max, though, but typical for someone's version of typical data. With very non-random data, it will go much higher. Gah4 (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Compressed capacity" is pure marketing and bears little-to-no relationship to what most users see.   Real world figures on my site are around 1.1-1.2:1.   If I use repetitive text or other low-entropy data (database dumps are a good source) then I've hit 8:1 on a purely experimental basis in LTO5 - but this is an exception. We've seen _NO_ difference in real world compression ratio across the generations even as compression algorithms have supposedly improved (In reality the majority of what little gain has actually been achieved comes from ingesting larger raw chunks of data)Stoatwblr (talk) 00:31, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would completely remove "compressed capacity", at least from the comparison tables in the article. Assuming it to be 2.5:1 is completely arbitrary. In reality it is neither a lower, nor an upper bound for actual compressed capacity.  Kwinzman (talk) 09:32, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capacity figures 

message: Are the colours actually part of the standard or just the colours used by a particular manufacturer?  All the HP brand 400GB LTO media I have seen was coloured dark red, which doesn't match the table in the article. --James 03:37, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think any of the LTO5/6 colors are standardized except that the WORM tapes are bi-colored.  --ssd (talk) 20:25, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colours 

message: I've been googling this and the main page here is about all the info I can find!
Some of the questions I would have are:
What's the logical inter block gap (eg DDS is 4bytes, QIC is more like 2kbytes
Q: How does it react to already compressed data? (again DDS eg: logical capacity drops to about 60% if you don't physicall turn off the compression!)
A: For each data block written to tape with compression on it compares the size of the compressed and uncompressed data and writes whichever is smaller.  Each block has one bit to indicate compressed or not.  You can also turn off compression through a SCSI command.  (Linux mt will do it.)
Q: I have found a couple of hits that the streaming requirements are easier than other tape drives, do the tape drives run at multiple speeds?  
A: The HP LTO-2 Drive I use can stream at 10MB/sec to 30MB/sec.  Other drives have different streaming ranges.
Later...
Okay, I've put the stuff I did find eventually in the article looks like chop. chop time. 86.16.135.53 08:22, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recording characteristics 

message: As the pages for binary units, gigabyte, etc. makes very clear, there is more than one interpretation for "GB". I'm not trying to start YAUW (Yet Another Unit War) but I do think we have to either:
* Use MiB/s and GiB as these units aren't ambiguous
or:
* Add an explanation (perhaps in the notes section) stating that the units for this page is 2^x or 1024^y
Doldr 16:05, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Check out this page: ECMA 319, it looks like 100 Gbytes, the units used in the docs, means 100 x 109 bytes. -- Austin Murphy 21:17, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Units used for capacity and transfer speeds 

message: I feel half-height drives should be mentioned for LTO-2 & LTO-3 (and very soon LTO4).  Perhaps only a short excerpt about how they operate at ~3/4 the data transfer rate of their full-height counterparts but take up only half the size height-wise? Being that they still use the same media as they are named after, capacity of course does not change. -- halfmoon 01:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  HH (Half-height) drives 

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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Lto-logo.png

message: I noticed that all Ultrium/LTO devices on the market appear to be SCSI-only.  Is there something in the specification that requires only SCSI devices? -Rolypolyman (talk) 06:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that 3480 and DLT are completely incompatible and serve different markets, but they both have linear, multi-track, half-inch tape in a square-ish cartridge.   It is mentioned because LTO was built using IBM's technology (3480 & successors) and was aimed at DLT.   --Austin Murphy (talk) 19:13, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  SCSI is a standardised command structure and LTO/Ultrium is intended for Enterprise-scale deployments.  Other interface "standards" are either electrically odd or "orphaned" and it drives manufacturing costs up to cater to all the variations in what is really a fairly small sales market, so it makes sense to standardise (plus most of them aren't fast enough to keep up with data flow, only allow point-to-point connections or are limited to very short cable lengths. This includes ATAPI(IDE) and its SATA cousin which are essentially SOHO/SMB standards for use in a desktop system - which is one environment Linear tape drives will not survive long due to dust ingestion). FC and SAS are both highly standardised scsi transport encapsulations so there's no translation issue incurred talking to drives across these technologies. You're going to be spending several thousand dollars on a LTO drive and tapes, so why would you quibble on a couple of hundred for a decently fast HBA interface and making sure your expensive drive (plus your critical data) is treated carefully?  Stoatwblr (talk) 01:26, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: SCSI

message: "The units for data transfer generally follow the binary prefix convention. (eg. mega = 2^20)"
Is there any reliable source for that? Data transfer rates hardly ever are given in binary prefixes. --GlaMax (talk) 13:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Data transfer rates 

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message: One paragraph says that band 0 is fill first, then next that bands are filled in 3, 1, 0, 2 order, suggesting 3 is first. Which one is it? Gah4 (talk) 20:57, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Data is stored in multiple bands, but each band is composed of a number of serpentine wraps.   The bands are numbered across the face of the tape for human convenience but accessed in an alternate pattern to avoid substrate stretching/wear potentially caused by accessing the bands in linear order (it's a bit more complicated than that - it's also about ensuring that if people do things like consistently only recording half a tape, that the wear is spread more evenly across the tape face rather than being concentrated on one side or other of that face - bear in mind that the heads themselves move up and down the tape to access these bands. They're not fixed in position like audio tape heads are Stoatwblr (talk) 01:34, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  band fill order 

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message: can anyone provide a quick-&-dirty picture of the track layout vs the serpentine path of a single track, to illustrate how this enormous amount of data is written to tape in a timely fashion without the use of rotating heads? how has this evolved with better materials? how is retro-compatibility ensured & what behoves the manufacturers to ensure backwards-compatibility rather than making everyone do a migration when they upgrade (say) from LTO-6 to LTO-7?
duncanrmi (talk) 17:04, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  diagram of track layout