LTO 4 5 6

[superatticman]

Are they 'backwards' compatible so to speak? Can an LTO 6 drive read and write to an LTO 4 tape? Or is it a case of 'read only' for older tapes?

 

Thanks

[localzuk]

I believe LTO are read/write compatible with the prior generation, and only read compatible with the generation before that. So an LTO 6 drive can read/write LTO 5, and read LTO 4.

[fiza]

I think it can read/write LTO 5 but only read 4

 

edit @localzuk beat me to it!

[Naughty_Nigel]

All LTO drives will read and write to the previous generation of tapes, and will read from two generations back.

 

However, if you put a later generation LTO tape into any LTO drive it will spit the tape out.

 

The only exception is the cleaning tape, which seems to be compatible with all models.

 

Nigel.

[sonofsanta]

The others have it. We still use LTO4 tapes in our LTO5 autoloader most days of the week, as we've not yet grown to need LTO5. Soon, though.