Sony's Storage Media Division has signed the LTO-6 licensing agreement with the Linear Tape Open (LTO) Program Technology Provider Companies.

It's an important step that will allow Sony to start development of LTO-6 Ultrium media for today?s data-intensive world.

LTO-6 tape cartridge is storing up to an estimated 3.2TB native (8TB compressed) of data on a single cartridge at a rapid transfer rate of up to 210MB/s native (525 MB/s compressed). This enhanced capacity is over double that currently offered by LTO-5 tape cartridge.

Newly developed magnetic particles will combine with advances in manufacturing technology to increase recording density and performance. Sony LTO-6 tape cartridge will also include the LTFS partitioning feature introduced on LTO-5 tapes.

Although final specifications of LTO-6 tape technology are still to be confirmed, the new licensing agreement gives Sony a green light to push ahead with development of this exciting technology. Sony's LTO factory suffered severe damage due to the March 2011 tsunami but is now back on track with newly manufactured supplies of LTO-1 through LTO-5 media being delivered to the market during CY11 Q4.