IBM TS1070 LTO Ultrium 7 Fibre Channel Tape Drive for TS4500 (3588-F7C)

3588-F7C is the IBM LTO Ultrium 7 tape drive, known as the TS1070, in the compact drive sled that installs in the IBM TS4500 tape library. It is a dual-ported drive with 8 Gbps Fibre Channel attachment. Data is recorded on half-inch tape in a linear serpentine format across 3,584 data tracks grouped in four servo bands.

Native transfer speed is up to 300 MBps, and an LTO Ultrium 7 data or WORM cartridge holds up to 6 TB native. The drive reads and writes LTO-7 and LTO-6 cartridges and reads LTO-5; it cannot read LTO-4, LTO-3, LTO-2 or LTO-1 media. Dynamic speed matching works across 12 speeds, which reduces backhitch repositioning when the host supplies data more slowly than the drive can write.

Each drive has a 1,024 MB internal data buffer and a 16 KB cartridge memory with Ultrium 7 media. Application-managed and library-managed encryption are supported, as are IBM Storage Archive Single Drive, Library and Enterprise Editions and LTFS partitioning. Maximum operating power is 31 watts, and idle power is 15 watts.

The 3588 field MES path converts an earlier 3588-F7A drive to the F7C model. For a newer generation in the same TS4500 drive family, there is the 3588-F8C LTO-8 TS1080.