With the release of LTO-5, LTO tape backup technology continues to dominate the market. LTO is the most used data protection media by organizations with terabytes of data to store, up through to petabytes and more. LTO-5, the fifth generation of the technology, stores 1.5 TB of data native (not compressed) on tape - with compression the value is 3 TB of data per tape. LTO-5 improves on LTO-4 performance as well, increasing from 120 MB/s to 140 MB/s.

LTO-5 drives and media are now in stock at ImageStore.

What is the future for Tape Backup ? A question often written about in the press and depending on who's being asked it we get very different answers. Tanberg a tape specialist has re-invented itself and is now moving into the Hard Disk market, while IBM and HP have just launched LTO-5 technology and will no doubt be looking forward to more record sales. If these worldwide figures are anything to go by you'll see what I mean:

2007  - 2,000,000 LTO drives sold   2007  - 80,000,000 LTO tapes sold
2008  - 2,500,000 LTO drives sold   2008  - 100,000,000 LTO tapes sold
2009  - 3,300,000 LTO drives sold   2009  - 150,000,000 LTO tapes sold

So as you can see from these figures LTO Tape is enjoying tremendous success and continues to grow. The debate between Tape and Disk will long continue but you cannot argue that tape is a lot less expensive than disk for long term storage and as we all know Cost is King.

more info: LTO Tape drives

more info: LTO Tape media

It’s the big race meeting at Cheltenham this week and on Friday Kauto Star goes up against his great rival Denman. With Kauto Star having gotten the better of his foe last year, can Denman get anywhere near this year. Reports from Paul Nicholls are that Denman is fit and ready to go, but he's rated 10points less than Kauto, who comes off of a great win in the King George. I personally cannot see the Star being beaten.

In our industry it's very rare to see a two horse race over similar technology but that’s exactly what happened with the HD vs. Blu Ray battle a couple of years ago. Sony's inclusion of the BD player in its PS3 gaming machine increased the amount of BD players around the world. Ultimately the HD customer base was outnumbered and HD production companies switched their allegiances to Blu Ray technology. Today you can pick up a Pioneer Blu Ray writer from ImageStore for £144 + VAT and we'll be throwing in a free Sony BD-RE disc till the end of March.

Contact us if you wish to comment on this blog or have any questions.

Imagestore are exhibiting this year at the UK Radiological Congress at the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham in June 2010.

UKRC is a three day multidisciplinary Congress covering all aspects of diagnostic imaging and oncology, as well as radiology informatics and service delivery.

UKRC is the leading and largest diagnostic imaging event in the UK:

• Over 3000 delegates and visitors
• Comprehensive Exhibition
• Focus on current and emerging technologies
• Prestigious international speakers
• Eponymous Lectures from the UKRC partner societies

We will be in attendance to offer advice and support on all forms of Data Storage.

Visit the British Institute of Radiology for more information: Link to Website www.bir.org.uk

We currently supply many hospitals in the UK with pre-printed customised CD-R and DVD-/+R media – if you’re using CD or DVD media – are you using ImageStore?

If not please take time to read the following information regarding our CD and DVD printing service.

 We specialise in supplying the medical industry, and we are already setup to deal with your requests: from next day urgent deliveries, small customised quantities or large pallet orders we have the expertise to meet your requirements. All the CDs and DVDs we use are Medical Grade Verbatim media and we can supply pre-packaged in Jewel Cases, Slim Jewel Cases or on Spindles with High Quality Plastic Wallets.

         We are also here on the end of a telephone to discuss your requirements as and when you require them - No voice mail or menu systems on our phone lines, you’ll be talking directly to an expert every time you call.

Contact us if you wish to comment on this blog or have any questions.

Did you know?

ImageStore are the UK leading specialists in DVD RAM Storage.

Not only do we provide the DVD RAM hardware and media, we also offer DVD RAM Drive Repairs and Refurbished Drives.

The current Panasonic Model is the SW-9576-C drive, this is a 5xSpeed DVD Ram drive and we can supply with IDE or SATA connection or in an enternal USB box.

All the Pansonic DVD Ram drives we sell take the DVD Ram Cartridges, providing extra security to your backups.

Contact us if you wish to comment on this blog or have any questions.

We've just received a shipment containing the Latest and Greatest Pioneer Blu Ray SATA Writers from Pioneer, Model BDR-205BK.

ImageStore has tested many blu ray writers and this is by far the best.

These drives are the best Blu Ray Writers available and we have them in stock ready to ship, you'll receive next day via our overnight delivery service from the ever reliable Fed-Ex couriers.

This Pioneer Drive writes at 12x to BDR's and BDR Dual Layer discs with almost silent running too.

12x Speed means a full 50GB BDR Dual Layer disc can be written to in only 15 minutes!!

You can order here www.imagestore.co.uk/Products/Blu+Ray+Drives

We are also able to provide this drive as an External USB system, to allow users quick plug and play connectivity.

And for the serious Blu Ray Authors out there we have BDR Duplicators - ranging from the entry level standalone 1 to 1 system right up to the 1 to 7 target systems (again these are in stock ready to ship)

We've been using Cyberlink BD software in house for our Blu Ray Writing and we would reccomend users of BDR writers give this software a trial.

Contact us if you wish to comment on this blog or have any questions.

Welcome to the new ImageStore blog.

Here we will be posting a myriad of items; our thoughts, events that occur during our day, articles and 'new stuff' in data storage.

We hope you enjoy the read - share your comments, we love a conversation!