HPE StoreEver LTO-8 Ultrium 30750 External Tape Drive

BC023A is the external, half-height HPE StoreEver LTO-8 Ultrium 30750 tape drive. HPE rates a cartridge at 12TB native and 30TB compressed at 2.5:1, with 300 MB/s sustained native transfer, a 600 MB/s burst rate on 6 Gb/s SAS, 1,024 MB of buffer and data-rate matching between 100 and 300 MB/s native. It supports LTFS and AES 256-bit hardware encryption, and its replacement part number is 882281-001.

The drive reads and writes LTO-8, LTO-7 and LTO-7 Type M media. LTO-8 WORM cartridges give write-once archiving for compliance work, and HPE's LTO-8 media are the 30TB rewritable Q2078A and the 30TB WORM Q2078W.

The interface is 6 Gb/s dual-port SAS with an external mini-SAS SFF8088 connector. The box holds the drive, one HPE LTO-8 Ultrium 30TB RW data cartridge, a mini-SAS High Density SFF8644 to mini-SAS SFF8088 cable and documentation. For US-English localization HPE lists BC023A#ABA.

Out of the box the external unit measures 3 x 8.8 x 11.7 in (7.7 x 22.3 x 29.5 cm) and weighs 10.3 lb (4.65 kg). It runs from 100 to 240 VAC, 50-60 Hz, auto-ranging, at 0.8 A maximum, and draws 11 W idle and 31 W typical. HPE gives an average load time of 15 seconds, unload of 24 seconds, rewind from end of tape of 114 seconds, and MTBF of 250,000 hours at 100% duty cycle.

HPE lists the 2.0 m external Mini SAS High Density to Mini SAS cable 716191-B21 for connecting external LTO-8 drives such as this one. The internal LTO-8 drive is BC022A, and its TAA-compliant internal sibling is BC024A.

Related HPE tape parts: HPE tape drives and libraries and HPE StoreEver MSL LTO-8 Ultrium 30750 FC drive upgrade kit.