HPE’s Revolutionary Name Change
LTO 8 Type M is now LTO 7 Type M
LTO Ultrium LTO-7 Type M media products have changed.
Why the LTO Type M Name Change?
During the innovative fourth quarter of 2017, HPE, IBM, and Quantum, proclaimed a new feature of LTO-8 drives.
Their ground-breaking announcement was the first of its kind: LTO-7 media initialized as LTO-8 Type M media.
Essentially, the Type M media gives an LTO-8 tape drive the ability to write 9 TB native and 22.5 TB compressed capacity (assuming 2.5:1 compression) using standard LTO-7 media.
However, the Type M media can only take advantage the increased capacity when using an LTO-8 drive combined with an unused LTO-7 cartridge.
It is the specialized Type M barcode that makes the LTO-8 tape drive write to the LTO-7 tape cartridge, thus creating more volume on the media.
Accordingly, HPE, IBM, and Quantum agreed to refer to these cartridges as LTO-8 Type M media.
This innovative manipulation of magnetic storage media had never been done before. It was brilliant.
In spite of this, legal counsel has ruled against using the name ‘LTO-8’ to describe a product that holds an LTO-7 legal trademark.
The LTO-7 logo is inscribed on the LTO-7 cartridge which was used to initialize the Type M media.
Therefore, using the name ‘LTO-8’ was deemed inappropriate.
As a result, in February 2018, respecting the legal guidance, they changed the name of ‘LTO-8 Type M’ to ‘LTO-7 Type M’.
This was an industry-wide ruling that applied to all manufacturers and suppliers of LTO Ultrium tape including HPE, IBM, and Quantum.
Affected Products
So, What’s Next?
Hewlett Packard Enterprises will be revising all of its physical and digital marketing materials, custom price lists, supply chain and order management systems to signify the LTO Type M name change.
Due to the long drawn out timelines required for new product launches in all worldwide markets, HPE was not able to make the necessary changes before the LTO-8 drives and Type M media became public on February 5th.
Consequently, it may appear that LTO-8 Type M and LTO-7 Type M product descriptions coincide in HPE product, marketing and other sales materials for an undetermined length of time.
What Should You Do?
In order to stay up to date with the product description change, it would be advised to revise any ecommerce presence, price listings, brochures, sales information, marketing material, and other collateral to mirror the change of name to LTO-7 Type M. However, there is no need to change any feature or benefit content describing the product performance. Product narratives regarding how Type M technology is enabled will also remain the same.
For any questions regarding the change or any further information please feel free to contact WeBuyUsedTape.net where our friendly storage media experts are standing by.