Cache-A introduces LTO-6

Cache-A, a manufacturer of storage solutions, has just renewed its products by incorporating the new LTO-6 tape format, thus creating a new generation of devices and platforms with this technology.

LTO-6 is the sixth generation of LTO (Linear-Tape Open) tapes, the first official version of which was launched in 2000. Each of these tapes has a useful life of about 30 years, making them a secure and economical storage system with a long-term view.

Cache-A has revamped its Pro-Cache, Power-Cache and Library24/48 products to provide users with a significant increase in archiving capacity and transfer speed.

Each generation of LTO has been increasing these two factors to improve performance. Thus, an LTO-6 cartridge has a native capacity of 2.5TB (a 67% increase over the LTO-5) and can read and write data at 160MB/s; unlike the LTO-5 cartridges, which read and write at 140MB/s and have a capacity of 1.5TB.

As in previous generations, Cache-A systems provide backward compatibility. That is, the new devices will be able to read and write to LTO-6 and LTO-5 cartridges and only read LTO-4 cartridges. In addition, different generations of tapes can be mixed in a single system.

Today’s projects are getting bigger and bigger due to the adoption of 4K, the use of s3D, which doubles the amount of data, and recently the introduction of high frame rate productions (such as The Hobbit). For such projects that generate tens of terabytes per day, Cache-A has created a high-performance platform called Power-Cache, which allows up to four LTO-6 disks to be read and written in parallel and has two 10GbE ports to handle the data rate.

On the other hand, the Prime-Cache platform is the company’s main product and Library24/48 are systems that automate storage by working with the Pro-Cache and Power-Cache models, and feature 24 (up to 36TB) or 48 (up to 72TB) slots.

All of them can be connected to the web, making them easy to deploy in professional digital workflows, from on-set “cart” systems to SAN and NAS storage systems in post-production.

In addition to combining advanced LTFS (Linear Tape File System) capabilities with a simple, web-based interface, these devices maintain the space-saving, rack-mountable physical features of previous Cache-A products. The LTFS implementation offers features such as cartridge expansion for large projects and high-speed copying for making duplicates.

To cope with the additional capacity, Cache-A has increased the internal disk caching of its products. In Pro-Cache6 it has gone up from 4TB to 6TB, and in Power Cache from 8TB to 12TB. This internal disk storage can be configured in RAID 0 or RAID 1, for Pro-Cache, and in RAID 0 or RAID 5 for Power-Cache.

The revamped Pro-Cache6, Power-Cache and Library24/48 are now available. The new Prime-Cache6 is expected to be released around the time of NAB 2013, which will take place next April.