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LTO Ultrium has attracted a quality line-up of competing vendors each offering a mix of technology enhancements, features, build quality, and attractive pricing. Lynx and Hewlett-Packard have again teamed up to deliver a comprehensive range of products with some of the most advanced features seen to date.
Unique Media Fail-Safe design
All LTO drives offer soft loading of tape media with mechanical assistance as standard, however there are some innovations with regards to how the tape is captured and threaded. The Lynx Ultrium drive has a major advantage with the leader capture mechanism. Our leader block design is shaped in a half-moon, with a matched cutout in the hub of the take-up reel to form a cylindrical winding surface. The advantage of this design is that the threading method positively locks the leader pin in the leader block so the leader pin cannot be lost - even if power is cut to the drive. Another feature is the inclusion of four position state checks with sensors on both ends of the leader pin to ensure proper engagement before attempting to thread. Sufficient "intelligence" is provided in firmware to enable the drive to detect, evaluate, release and recapture the media if the connection is not perfect and all without the need for media to be ejected.
Power Fail-Safe features
Close attention has been given to producing drives with mechanical and electrical systems designed for low power consumption and heat dissipation. The level of integration used to achieve these goals is clearly demonstrated in our Ultrium LTO drives.
Another innovation introduced into all Lynx drives is Power-Fail-Safe, a measure where by the drive stores sufficient power in reserve to enable the drive to stop safe in the event of an unplanned power termination. The system powers brakes to both cartridge and take-up reels whilst the servo maintains consistent tape tension.
Adaptive Tape Speed
One of the problems that has always affected tape drives up to now is the need to reposition the tape or stream-fail because the tape drive is writing data faster than the host computer can supply it. This results in a lot of wear and tear on the mechanism and stress on the media and hence reduced reliability or early mechanical failure. Even a large buffer cannot totally prevent stream fails if the speeds are mismatched in steady state. Something better is needed.
The Lynx Ultrium Tape Drive overcomes this problem by employing a system called Adaptive Tape Speed or ATS developed by Hewlett-Packard. The ATS system continually monitors the data throughput of the drive, and adjusts the writing speed of the drive to match the host computer. In most applications the ATS system completely eliminates the need for the drive to do repositions. An important differentiator between ATS and alternate variable speed implementations is that ATS adjusts speed dynamically as apposed to "stepped" methods that can only adjust tape speed at the end of a wrap (reaching the end of tape).
In-built self cleaning system
The Lynx LTO Ultrium drives include the most efficient head cleaner implementation of all LTO drives currently available. Not only does a preventive "active" head cleaning cycle take place during each load/unload cycle, the drive can also automatically activate cleaning on demand if head contamination is detected. This is particularly useful during long backups when users are not likely to be around to insert a cleaning tape or manually engage a cleaning cycle as required in competing products.
Another design feature is that our implementation provides a dedicated motor to operate a brush that is moved perpendicularly over the head whilst the head-positioning actuator moves the head up and down. This method is far more effective in removing materials from grooves in the head assembly. The head design itself also provides a clearing edge on the dual bump array that effectively clears debris prior to reaching the active read/write area.
For more detailed information on LTO Ultrium technologies, white papers can be obtained from Lynx Technologies, Hewlett-Packard and the LTO Ultrium Consortium.
Packaging
Package includes user documentation, data cartridge, backup software, SCSI cable and terminator.
3 years warranty (next day swap-out) (Note: 3 years next day advanced replacement warranty is available for standalone tape drives only)
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