Instant ROI: offers a 577% ROI with up to 55% lower costs vs HDD storage
Store More: up to 12TB native and up to 30TB¹ compressed storage capacity per tape cartridge
Flexible: built-in IBM-LTO-8 drive reads and writes LTO-8, LTO-7 Type M "M-8", and LTO-7 tapes
Store Longer: up to 30-year tape longevity
LTFS Compatible: archive files/folders with drag and drop ease
Secure: supports AES 256-bit encryption for sensitive data
Compliance Ready: supports WORM cartridges required by legal and regulatory record keeping
Fast Tape Creation: up to 300MB/s native, up to 750MB/s¹compressed transfer rates

The Answer to Protecting and Preserving Huge Volumes of Data

M&E professionals, corporations, government branches, and small businesses are all facing the same challenge: how to manage an ever-increasing amount of complex data. Higher resolution, complex audio, and diverse formats are the project norm. Organizational content is projected to grow 50-70% annually as more data is digitalized. Licensing/regulatory/compliance requirements are becoming more stringent.

The answer to this challenge is the Mercury Pro LTO. This easily integrated tape backup/archiving solution is a mission-critical requirement for protecting and preserving huge volumes of data for longer periods with familiar drag-and-drop operation and better economies of scale than disk-based storage. Ruggedly small with a built-in handle, the Mercury Pro LTO is able to go on-set or move among studio, department or office computers for a shared data protection solution.

Learn more about archive strategies >

Archiving Made Drag and Drop Easy

There’s a priceless convenience of familiarity in using the Mercury Pro LTO to protect your data. Using archiving industry-standard Linear Tape-Open (LTO) tapes formatted with the Linear Tape File System (LTFS), the tapes can be accessed on your computer just like a hard drive or SSD. Files appear in folders, and moving them to/retrieving them from tape is drag and drop easy. And compatibility has never been more simple thanks to LTFS, LTO tapes can be read from a Mac, PC, or Linux system, so there’s no extra software to buy or proprietary hardware concerns.

Advanced Yet Future-Ready

Because LTFS is an open, cross-platform system, and LTO tape is the dominant archiving medium that has continued to advance since being introduced in 2000, you can be confident knowing you'll be able to access your data with any brand of LTO hardware for decades to come. The Mercury Pro LTO uses the latest 12TB LTO-8 tapes, the previous generation 6TB LTO-7 tapes, and was designed to use future release LTO-9 drives.

Experience up to 55% Lower TCO

Compared to using hard drives for archival storage, the OWC Mercury Pro LTO offers an instant ROI, and pays for itself in no time by continually and dramatically lowering project and production costs.

Lower Lifetime Costs with Far Greater Life Expectancy

A 10-year Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) study performed by the Enterprise Strategy Group comparing the costs of long-term storage on disk, LTO tape, and cloud had a staggering revelation. LTO tape-based archiving offers a 577% ROI! That’s because LTO-tape offers the lowest cost per TB storage format and the longest life expectancy.

Meets Stringent Regulations

Whether you need to keep sensitive data secure during transportation or ensure irreplaceable data will be archive protected, the Mercury Pro LTO enables healthcare, financial, and related industries to meet strict legal and regulatory procedures for data confidentiality and integrity. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256-bit encryption conceals your data from unauthorized access by making it readable only by the Mercury Pro LTO. By using a WORM (Write Once, Ready Many) LTO tape, you can store your data in a non-erasable, non-rewritable format to prevent accidental overwrite or malicious data alteration.

The Perfect Solution

for A Variety of Industries

LTO Tape archiving is used by a wide variety of industries for diverse needs:

Anyone seeking offsite data storage that is separated from the read/write host.
Businesses desiring database and content backup protection against ransomware, cyber-attacks, and operations disruption due to natural disasters.
Local/State/Federal Government agencies with ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) workflows; video and files related to law/ordinance passage and day-to-day operations.
Healthcare providers and organizations with medical records and imaging data.
Educational institutions needing to keep a myriad of data - including research - produced by students, teachers, and professors accessibly protected while freeing up more costly storage options for short term use and backup.
Video surveillance operations with increasing number of higher resolution colorized cameras.
Motion picture industry production companies needing to meet bondable and insurable archive requirements
Digital media companies can free up production disk capacity and shorten production windows by reusing and editing existing footage for new productions.

Simple Workflow

Integration and Expansion

The Mercury Pro LTO enables you to archive data seamlessly in your workflow via the included Thunderbolt 3 cable connected to your Mac. You can also optionally enhance your workflow by:

Adding up to a 4TB SSD to the 2.5/3.5-inch drive expansion bay for extra storage and backup capacity.
Connecting a USB 3.0, USB-C, or Thunderbolt 3 device to the Mercury Pro LTO’s second Thunderbolt 3 port for added functionalities
Adding a second display with up to 8K resolution via the DisplayPort 1.4 interface
Keeping your notebook charged with the 85W Thunderbolt 3 port

Available with ArGest Backup Software

OWC’s ArGest Backup makes it easy to manage LTO-based backups and archival with Drag and Drop ease of use and Enterprise-class reliability. Supporting both the ultra-reliable BRU archival format as well as the LTFS bulk data transport format, ArGest Backup provides the best solution for both long-term backup and archival as well as the LTFS data transfer format.

Already have a favorite archiving software?

Mercury Pro LTO works with other industry leading archiving and management software including: Pomfort Silverstack XT, Hedge Canister, YoYotta LTFS, XenData6 Workstation, Archiware P5, and more.

Use Case Spotlight:

Netflix Data Management Requirements

LTO solutions like the Mercury Pro LTO have become a workflow requirement for production companies like Netflix, which employing a 3:2:1 rule to safeguard OCF (original camera footage), provide off-site backup, and fulfill long-term archiving of series and films.

In every “rule,” Netflix lists LTO tapes as an acceptable archival  format, and a critical  component  in  meeting  their partner data management requirements.

Secure Your Workflow with OWC ClingOn

Greatly reduce – if not eliminate – cable strain and accidental disconnects in active, heavy traffic flow workspaces with the OWC ClingOn. These custom cable stabilizers (sold separately) screw into the Mercury Pro LTO’s housing and secure your Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C connections to prevent work session interruption and possible data loss.

Certified for Demanding Use

We understand having confidence in gear reliability is paramount to creative professionals. That’s why every Mercury Pro LTO solution undergoes a multi-step performance certification prior to shipping. This ensures your archiving solution arrives operating properly and immediately ready for demanding use.

Completes the OWC Solution

Thanks to the Mercury Pro LTO, OWC now offers the film industry, corporations, government branches, and even small businesses a trustworthy “ingest to archive” single source. With portable data capture options like the ThunderBlade, Express 4M2, and Envoy Pro EX; desktop options like the ThunderBay line-up; and internal drive options like the Accelsior 4M2 and Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 2.5-inch SSD, OWC is the one project source that does it all for all those that create data.

^{1. 30TB / 750MB/s with 2.5:1 data compression}
^{2. Full DisplayPort 1.4 capabilities depends on host computer support of DisplayPort 1.4 specification through its Thunderbolt 3 connection, host computer GPU capabilities, and connecting cable capabilities.}
^{3. Apple Mac models with Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 ports can connect to the OWC Mercury Pro LTO by using the Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter (sold separately).}