TDK will start selling data storage cartridges based on the LTO (Linear Tape-Open) Ultrium 3 format in Japan and elsewhere from the middle of November, the company said Friday.
The cartridges have a capacity of 400G bytes and can transfer data at a rate of 80M bytes per second. The price in Japan will be YEN 20,500 (US$257) per cartridge, according to Nobuyuki Koike, a company spokesman. TDK was not ready to discuss pricing outside of Japan.
The storage media contains tape with a width of 12.65 millimeters and has 704 recording tracks. It maintains a low error rate up to 25,000 reads/writes, according to the company.
The product is the first to pass certification testing by the CVE (Compliance Verification Entity), the organization certifying LTO standardization, according to TDK.
LTO is a consortium comprising Certance, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, which collectively agree upon LTO Ultrium standards. LTO tape is considered a "super tape" format and competes with Quantum's SDLT (Super Digital Linear Tape) and Sony's S-AIT (Super Advanced Intelligent Tape) formats.
Certance announced Thursday that it had started selling its brand of LTO Ultrium 3 format cartridges for US$147 per cartridge.
TDK also plans to sell a write-once type cartridge, but is not saying when, according to Koike.
