Despite recent claims that LTO-5 is at risk of being a dead format due to Imation being the first vendor to sign on for it, over the last week there’s been stories everywhere about SpectraLogic announcing a pre-purchase program for their LTO-5 offerings. SpectraLogic’s programme is intended to allow companies to continue to purchase LTO-4 drives and replace them with LTO-5 when they become available.
Given that SpectraLogic is in the library business rather than the tape drive manufacturing business, the most important part of this announcement is that one of the key drive manufacturers is preparing to commence production. (Since SpectraLogic has apparently had a history of sourcing drives from IBM, there’s a historical reason why IBM drives may be sourced by SpectraLogic.)
I think it’s fair to say that LTO-4 still has some legs left in it – thus, I’m not surprised that the LTO-5 take up is building more slowly than previous generation formats. That shouldn’t be seen as a negative towards the format – just a sign of continuing maturity in the industry.