13. LTO 4-10 Technical Specifications
LTO Generation | Native Capacity | Compressed Capacity | Compatibility Read/Write | Cable SAS | Cable FC | Native Speed (MB/s) | Compressed Speed (MB/s) | Release Year |
LTO-4 | 800 GB | 1.6 TB | Reads LTO-4, LTO-3, LTO-2; Writes LTO-4, LTO-3 | SAS-1 3Gbps
| 4Gbps
| 120 | 240 | 2007 |
LTO-5 | 1.5 TB | 3.0 TB | Reads LTO-5, LTO-4, LTO-3; Writes LTO-5, LTO-4 | SAS-2 6Gbps
| 8Gbps
| 140 | 280 | 2010 |
LTO-6 | 2.5 TB | 6.25 TB | Reads LTO-6, LTO-5, LTO-4; Writes LTO-6, LTO-5 | SAS-2 6Gbps SAS-3 12Gbps | 8Gbps
| 160 | 400 | 2012 |
LTO-7 | 6.0 TB | 15.0 TB | Reads LTO-7, LTO-6, LTO-5; Writes LTO-7, LTO-6 | SAS-3 12Gbps
| 8Gbps, 16Gbps
| 300 | 750 | 2015 |
LTO-8 | 12.0 TB | 30.0 TB | Reads/Writes LTO-8, LTO-7 (including Type M) | SAS-3 12Gbps
| 16Gbps
| 360 | 900 | 2017 |
LTO-9 | 18.0 TB | 45.0 TB | Reads/Writes LTO-9, LTO-8 | SAS-3 12Gbps
| 16Gbps, 32Gbps
| 400 | 1000 | 2021 |
LTO-10 | 30.0 TB | 75.0 TB | Reads/Writes LTO-10 only (not backward compatible) | SAS-3 12Gbps, SAS-4 24Gbps
| 16Gbps, 32Gbps
| 400 | 1000 | 2025 |
Tip: When choosing a LTO generation, keep in mind that as LTO capacity gets larger, if you have more than 1 person wanting content that is all on the same tape volume, other users will have to wait even though there are multiple drives in the library. LTO-8 may be the sweet spot given trade-offs for volume size, speed of access, speed of formatting a volume.