There’s an unpublished blog post sitting whilst I wait for a certain vendor to get back to me to clear what I can actually say; life as a end-user blogger sometimes gets a little complicated because I find myself under strange NDAs and embargoes. Sometimes I find things out which would be really interesting to blog about but I can’t because of work NDAs and sometimes I find things out which would be useful for work but I’m sworn to secrecy. And sometimes I just don’t know what I can say!
Anyway, I’ve recently been looking at LTFS and it’s certainly an interesting technology, LTFS stands for Linear Tape File System and yes, we are talking about a file system on tape. Developed by IBM and adopted by the LTO Technology Provider companies as a self-describing tape format which allows a tape to be used as a file-system with full drag and drop capabilities allowing applications and users direct access to files using the tools/interfaces that they are used to.
Linux, OSX and Windows implementations are available for free but you do require a LTO5 device to utilise it. Actually, IBM do support their enterprise drives as well but in some ways that might miss the point of it. You can take an LTFS formatted LTO5 and move it between IBM, HP and Quantum systems and access it via a normal Explorer interface.
Yes, if you are bonkers enough; you can edit directly from tape and there is nothing stopping you editing a Word document if you wanted directly from tape without it touching disk. It would be painful but doable.
More interestingly is that both the meta-data describing what is on the tape and the data which is on the tape are both held on the tape in a standard, defined format; this means that an LTFS tape volume written by one application can be read another application. This has some significant advantages, especially with long-term archives which have potential life-spans measuring in tens of years and beyond; it means that you are no longer locked into a specific archive application vendor and if you want to change vendor, it should be simply a case of re-importing just the meta-data from the tape and not rewriting the whole tape.
Even back-up/restore applications might be able to handle foreign tapes in the future; no more worrying about whether the restore system is NetBackUp, TSM or whatever, it should be relatively simple to move tapes between these environments.
There are many other aspects and developments which might be interesting; I’m just waiting to talk about them. But with both Quantum and IBM involved, both having Scale-Out file-systems; there are some interesting possibilities.
And, oh yes; IBM have LTFS Library Edition which allows you to mount an entire library as a file-system….now that really lends itself to a Scale Out archive.
There will be more…
Portability is one of tape’s advantages and we’re a way off delivering that through B2D, so a unified open tape filesystem would be worth the effort. Last time I discussed it, everyone seemed to be of the view that tar was the one, I don’t know enough to comment on the relative merits of various systems but there’s little doubt that removal of proprietary tape filesystems would be a very welcome development.
How is encryption handled between the different vendors? Can an LTO cartridge be read or written on any vendors product if the key is provided?
Yes, it’s part of the LTO standard
Look at LTFS; it really is interesting. It has significant advantages over tar! Or we can discuss over a beer!!
[…] Anyway, I’ve recently been looking at LTFS and it’s certainly an interesting technology, LTFS stands for Linear Tape File System and yes, we are talking about a file system on tape. Developed by IBM and adopted by the LTO Technology Provider companies as a self-describing tape format which allows a tape to be used as a file-system with full drag and drop capabilities allowing applications and users direct access to files using the tools/interfaces that they are used to. Read on here […]