User Guide: XenData X2500-USB LTO-6 Archive System
4
1. Overview
1.1 X2500 Contents
The X2500-USB is an LTO-6 digital archive system and the following items are included.
LTO-6 tape drive in an external enclosure with a USB 3.0 interface
XenData memory stick with documentation and XenData6 Workstation software
1.8m USB cable - to connect the LTO-6 drive to a USB port
USA, European and UK power cords
LTO cleaning cartridge
LTO-6 2.5TB rewritable cartridge
Carrying case
1.2 About LTO
Linear Tape Open (LTO) is the leading data tape format and uses technology developed by HP,
IBM and Quantum Corporation. The latest generation of LTO is LTO-6 which provides high storage
capacity, high speed file transfers and a long archival data life:
Huge storage capacity
Each LTO-6 cartridge stores 2.5 TB without any compression. For
video files, this represents over 100 hours at a 50 Mbits/s recording rate.
High speed file transfers
LTO-6 tape drives write to and read from an LTO-6 cartridge at
up to 160 MBytes/s.
Long archival data life
LTO tape cartridges are available from multiple manufacturers that
specify a 30 years archival data life.
LTO tape cartridges are available as rewritable or WORM. WORM is an acronym for Write Once
Read Many and the data written to WORM LTO tape cartridges cannot be altered. This means that
WORM tapes cannot be reformatted and reused, unlike rewritable cartridges.
Tape drive compatibilities are as follows.
Drive
Type
2500 GB
RW
2500
GB
WORM
1500 GB
RW
1500
GB
WORM
800 GB
RW
800 GB
WORM
400 GB &
200 GB
RW
LTO-6
Read-
Write
Read-
Write
Read-
Write
Read-
Write
Read-
Only
Read-
Only
Not
Compatible
Supported
formats
LTFS
and TAR
TAR
LTFS and
TAR
TAR
TAR
TAR
1.3 LTO Archive and Restore via Drag and Drop
The X2500 system archives to and restores from LTO tape using W indows Explorer. The XenData6
Workstation software extends W indows Explorer's capabilities to transfer files to and from LTO
using drag and drop or copy and paste. Files many be archived to tape from any accessible logical
drive letter or network share, including Mac shares. Similarly, files may be restored to a local drive
letter or a network location.
Using familiar W indows Explorer functionality, the software gives an option to copy only files that
have changed or are new.
