Welcome to Big Data Supply, Inc. we're your source for all types, brands and capacities of HP LTO 6 tape drive media, new and refurbished. Whether buying used HP LTO 6 backup tape in bulk to load up your data center, or just need a handful for your small office we got you covered. Quality refurbished HP LTO 6 tape media are a great and safe way to get a lot of data storage with major cost savings. You can buy wholesale HP LTO 6 backup tape for servers.
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30 DAY Warranty When You Buy Any HP LTO 6 Data Tape
Returns of any HP LTO 6 data tape products will be accepted from the original purchaser for a replacement or full refund provided up to 30 days from the date of original purchase.
All HP LTO 6 tape media you buy are properly secured for shipment in static bags, trays, bubble bags and/or corrugated slotted boxes where applicable to ensure satisfaction and perfectly good as new working condition.
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How to Buy HP LTO 6 Data Tape
Wondering how to place a bulk order for HP LTO 6 data tapes? Well, the process is simple.
LTO stands for Linear Tape-Open, which is the name of the tape storage technology developed by IBM, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Seagate, three major players in the data storage industry. The three companies developed the joint tape initiative back in 1997, with the first HP LTO format specifications, license availability, and technology roadmap being made available in 1998.
The term ‘open’ in HP LTO stands for ‘open format,’ meaning, users can use the HP LTO tape to access different storage media products, as long as they are compatible.
The number six (6) behind the term HP LTO signifies that it is the sixth generation. HP LTO Generation 6, or just HP LTO-6, became available in 2012, offering a maximum native storage capacity of 2.5 TB and maximum compressed capacity of 6.25 TB, up from 1.5 TB and 3 TB, respectively, offered by HP LTO Generation 5 (HP LTO-5).
HP LTO-6 offers a native data transfer rate of 160 MBps, and the compressed data rate was up to 400 MBps.
HP LTO-6 is not the latest HP LTO tape generation available at the moment, with HP LTO-7 (6 TB native, 15 TB compressed storage, HP LTO-8 (12 TB native, 30 TB compressed storage,) and HP LTO-9 (18 TB native, 45 TB compressed storage) became available in 2015, 2017, and 2021, respectively.
However, HP LTO-6 remains a popular choice now in 2022 due its great cost-per-gigabyte value.
Most tape manufacturing companies quote the lifespan of HP LTO tapes (not necessarily HP LTO-6 tapes) at about 30 years.
However, it’s important to consider that the lifespan of an HP LTO tape is extremely sensitive to storage conditions. This 30-year life expectancy is made by assuming you are using ideal storage conditions as follow:
Even the slightest deviation of these conditions (i.e., 5-degree Fahrenheit increase or decrease in temperature) can significantly lower the lifespan of the HP LTO-6 storage.
We can also measure an HP LTO-6 tape lifespan in the number of ‘passes.’
The term ‘passes’ here refers to the number of times the storage tape can ‘pass’ over the heads before it deteriorates.
The HP LTO-6 requires 136 end-to-end passes to fill the tape, with 20,000 end-to-end passes expected tape durability. This means that the HP LTO-6 tape is safe to use for 20,000 complete reads before it deteriorates.
Again, this number depends on whether the HP LTO-6 tape is stored in ideal conditions. Even a small amount of dust trapped in the tape drive can drastically reduce the number of safe uses.
The HP LTO-6 data tape has a 2.5 TB native cartridge capacity. It has a 2.5:1 data compression rate, allowing up to 6.25 TB of compressed data capacity. HP LTO-6 offers more than double the capacity (with compression) and a 40% performance boost than its previous generation HP LTO-5 drives.
This exceptional data storage capacity helps reduce the number of cartridges required to store data, as well as the amount of space, labor, and additional equipment.
With so many different manufacturers and brands offering HP LTO-6 storage tapes, the price of an HP LTO-6 tape can vary between different brands. However, there are HP LTO-6 tapes costing as low as below $22 per tape.
Yes, while HP LTO-6 is not the latest HP LTO tape generation available at the moment, HP LTO-6 remains a popular choice now in 2022 due to its great cost-per-gigabyte value.
HP LTO-7 (6 TB native, 15 TB compressed storage, HP LTO-8 (12 TB native, 30 TB compressed storage,) and HP LTO-9 (18 TB native, 45 TB compressed storage) became available in 2015, 2017, and 2021, respectively, making them newer options than the HP LTO-6 tape.
However, the HP LTO-6 tapes offer better overall value and cost-efficiency in most storage tape needs.
HP LTO-6 tapes, along with other generations of HP LTO tapes, are actually the most reliable storage solution available, with extremely low bit error rates (BER).
BER is a prediction of faulty bits—in percentage—per total number of written bits. To put things into context, HP LTO-6’s BER is 100 times higher than Flash SSD, 1,000 times more reliable than Fiber Channel & SAS HDD, and 10,000 times more reliable than standard SATA HDDs.
This means, for an HP LTO-6 tape, there would be 1 error event in every 200,000 LTO-6 cartridges, compared to 1 error event in every 20 enterprise-grade 6 TB SATA HDDs.
In fact, the odds of getting an uncorrectable error in an HP LTO-6 tape is much lower than winning a multi-million dollar lottery.
Not only is an HP LTO-6 tape reliable, but it is also very durable with an average life expectancy of over 30 years (provided ideal storage conditions.) Compare this to the average lifetime expectancy of standard HDDs of around 3-5 years.
