TOLIS Group Enhances Its Tape-Based Backup And Archival Solutions

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. TOLIS Group, Inc. has updated their tape-based backup and archive storage solutions to include the new LTO-5 tape drive, autoloader and library technology. Along with existing DAT, LTO-3 and LTO-4 bundled solutions, LTO-5 technology takes TOLIS Group's storage bundles to new heights by providing greatly improved performance and per-tape storage capacity.

Available in SAS (Serially Attached SCSI) and F-C (Fibre-Channel) configurations, the new LTO-5 options offer a greatly increased native storage capacity of 1.5TB per tape and 140MB/sec write and read performance. "The increased native storage capacity offered by LTO-5 is one of the most important improvements to tape storage," said Tim Jones, president and CTO of TOLIS Group. "By increasing the uncompressed, or native capacity of a single tape to 1.5TB (1,500,000,000,000 Bytes), LTO-5 will help reduce both media and storage costs for both large and small users. This means that a single LTO-5 cartridge can store up to 90 minutes of color-corrected HD or 2K media, 200K average-sized word processing documents, or 2M average-sized email messages. This would reduce the number of physical tapes needed to archive a completed feature film to 2 or 3 tapes and two 1-hour (43 min.) TV show episodes to a single tape. Additionally, writing at 140MB/sec means that you can store 1.5TB of data on tape in less than 3 hours on average (.5TB/hour)."

"Our 2K DI and HD finishing facility manages huge volumes of priceless client data. LTO-5's 1.5TB capacity and 140 MB/s bandwidth allows us to efficiently archive that client data," said Alexander Black, Managing Director at Colorflow Post. "With an average production generating many terabytes of data, fast & dense tape backup technology is a necessity for our business and our clients. We chose TOLIS Group because of their flexibility, excellent customer service, and rock-solid software. We're very happy with our choice."

Along with the increased performance and capacity that LTO-5 provides, using tape for long-term archival and backup storage is also the most power-efficient storage medium available today. The only time that power is required with tape-based storage is during the physical write or restore process. Once a tape is written and stored, it requires 0 watts to maintain for a nearly indefinite period. Also, because a stored tape is not generating heat, cooling requirements are also dramatically reduced versus disk-based solutions providing similar capacities.

TOLIS Group's backup and archival bundles are complete solutions which provide a single point of contact for the entire solution and include the tape drive, cabling, host bus adapter (HBA), media, cleaning cartridge, and appropriate BRU Producer's Edition and BRU Server backup and archival software. LTO-5 versions of our standalone and rack mount solutions are available immediately and autoloader and library solutions are expected to be available by the end of June. Bundle configurations are available for Apple OS X and Intel-based Linux platforms. Configuration and pricing information can be found by contacting your TOLIS Group reseller, calling the TOLIS Group sales department, or visiting the TOLIS Group website.