The OWC range has been expanded to include the OWC Mercury Pro LTO-8 desktop storage/archiving solution. It features Thunderbolt 3 and supports LTO-8 tape cartridges. One such cartridge can hold up to 12TB native and up to 30TB compressed storage capacity per tape cartridge.
LTO compatibility allows for 6 TB LTO-7 cartridges and eventually LTO-9 cartridges. In terms of the unit cost of storage, the tape is much more attractive than even hard drives, not to mention SSDs, and the information storage period is declared equal to 30 years. In terms of speed, a recording is performed at speeds up to 360 MB/s (with compression – up to 900 MB/s).
The drive supports 256-bit AES encryption. It is possible to use WORM cartridges required for storing legal or regulatory documents. A second Thunderbolt 3 port allows you to daisy chain up to six compatible devices. The drive can provide power to a laptop connected to it. The power consumption can be up to 85W. The product also benefits from a DisplayPort 1.4 port and a 3.5-inch drive bay.
By using archiving industry standard Linear Tape Open (LTO) tapes formatted with the Linear Tape File System (LTFS), the tapes can be accessed on your computer just like a hard drive or SSD. Files appear in folders and moving them to/retrieving them from tape is drag and drop easy. It is compatible with Mac, PC, or Linux systems so there’s no extra software to buy or proprietary hardware concerns.
OWC Mercury Pro LTO-8 price and availability
- 0TB LTO-8 storage/archiving solution at $4,199
- 1TB LTO-8 storage/archiving solution at $4,399
- 2TB LTO-8 storage/archiving solution at $4,599
- 4TB LTO-8 storage/archiving solution at $5,048
- 16TB LTO-8 storage/archiving solution at $7,799
They can be purchased through the Bhphotovideo.com, which includes myLTO software, LTO-8 Tape (12TB/30TB), cleaning cartridge, and Thunderbolt cable.
Earlier this year, OWC has replenished the Mini version of the external SSD drive named OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini. It is available in Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 2 interfaces.
