The specifications for the latest LTO Ultrium format, generation 8, has been announced by LTO Program Technology Provider Companies Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and Quantum. In addition, the LTO Program has issued a new LTO technology roadmap that details specifications up to 12 generations of technology, extending the total capacity of data held on one LTO Ultrium generation 12 tape cartridge to 480TB.
   

The new LTO generation 8 specifications are designed to double the tape cartridge capacity from the previous LTO generation 7. Customers can now store up to 30TB per cartridge when compressed. The new specifications are only backwards compatible with LTO generation 7 cartridges. The LTO generation 8 specifications will continue to include features from previous generations like multi-layer security support, including hardware-based encryption and Write-Once, Read Many functionality. The functionality that enable users to present tape-based file system with the use of LFTS will also be included.

Also, a new initialization feature will be introduced to generation 8 to enable the cartridge capacity to be increased by up to 50 percent. New LTO generation 7 cartridges initialized as LTO-8 Type M media will be able to store up to 22.5TB of data.