LTFS has made data storage very easy

For many organizations, magnetic tape media serves an important role in long-term data archival. The trouble with tape is that, traditionally, read and write standards are specific to vendors. That is, a tape written by one machine would likely be unreadable in another vendor’s machine. Or so was the case until the invention of Linear Tape File System, or LTFS, technology. LTFS was developed to alleviate issues surrounding proprietary lockdown on tape media technology. Referring to both the format and read software, LTFS standards transform tape into a universal file system that is accessible through any LTFS enabled system.

An easy way to visualize this is to compare LTFS to a USB flash drive. You could use any vendor’s flash drive to access files from a Dell computer, eject and then read the files after inserting the drive into a MAC. Only in the past several years has LTFS existed, giving new opportunity to the data archive industry.

Crossroads Systems recently released StrongBox, a business data archiving system that uses LTFS formatting to ensure data can be read by any system. StrongBox combines disk and tape to deliver rapid data access, while preserving long-term archival. StrongBox offers a solution that is both economical and attractive to companies that need rapid access to their archived data.

Without the open-nature of LTFS, data written to tape is accessible only through a vendor-appropriate application or system. This challenged the backup industry and inspired innovation as we see in the case of StrongBox. Looking forward, we can expect to see enhanced use of LTFS in making data archival faster, providing wider data access and opening up opportunities for greater scale archival.

Cross Roads - About Author:
Crossroads Strongbox is an enterprise-level solution leverages Linear Tape File System LTFS technology, combining the unparalleled scalability of tape with the speed and accessibility of disk. It addresses the need for a low cost and highly reliable active archive.

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