- High-capacity LTO-10 drive offers 30TB native storage for Apple Mac Mini configurations
- Offline tape storage adds security benefits through air gaps and built-in encryption
- LTO-10 desktop drive provides SSD-like transfer speeds for long-term archiving tasks
If you have serious storage needs, you’ll be interested to know that it’s possible to connect a 30TB LTO-10 tape drive to an Apple Mac Mini, which could be a useful, if quite expensive, solution for your long-term backups.
The SymplyPRO XTF SAS LTO-10 desktop tape drive supports native transfer speeds close to what a standard SATA SSD can achieve.
LTO-10 cartridges offer 30TB of native capacity and a claimed read and write speed of 400MB/s. The figure rises to 75TB if you use compression (2.5:1) with a potential transfer speed of 900MB/s to 1000MB/s, although that depends entirely on how easily the data is compressed.
LTO-10 only
The SymplyPRO XTF SAS LTO-10 small, full-height chassis is available for purchase at B&H for $11,395.25. Connecting to a Mac Mini or any recent macOS system is possible through a compatible Thunderbolt to SAS setup.
The unit includes two 12Gb/s SFF8644 ports and comes with the necessary cable for that link. It also ships with a data cartridge, cleaning cartridge, universal power cables, and Symply’s LTFS software, so buyers can start writing to tape right away.
The drive supports WORM cartridges and 256-bit encryption, which helps if the goal is long-term secure retention rather than short-term access.
Because LTO cartridges can be stored offline, they are often used to create an air gap that keeps backups away from remote attacks.
When combined with encryption, this approach adds another useful layer of protection in case a cartridge is unfortunately lost or misplaced.
LTO-10 is the newest generation of the tape format and the drive is not compatible with LTO-9 media, so existing libraries cannot be reused.
However, it will be compatible with the new 40TB LTO-10 enterprise native cartridges (up to 100TB compressed) announced by the LTO Program last month.
30TB LTO-10 tapes cost around $300 each, compared to the LTO-9 generation, which will cost you around $100 (18TB native/45TB compressed).
Still, the ability to connect a high-capacity desktop tape system to a compact Apple machine could be attractive to archivists, production teams, or users who need cold storage without using dedicated rack hardware.
Of course, tape isn’t designed to replace everyday SSDs, but its capacity, low error rates, and long life are attractive for storing massive data that doesn’t need to be accessed as frequently.
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