HPE LTO-9 45TB RW Data Cartridge - Q2079A

HPE Q2079A LTO-9 Rewritable Data Cartridge

The HPE Q2079A is an LTO-9 Ultrium rewritable data cartridge engineered for high-capacity archival and backup in surveillance, media production, and enterprise retention workflows. With native 45TB capacity and a 2.5:1 compression ratio, the Q2079A delivers up to 112.5TB of compressed storage per cartridge—a meaningful economics factor when managing multi-month retention on mid-scale camera systems or long-term compliance archives.

Storage Capacity and Performance

• Native 45TB capacity with 2.5:1 compression: Yields 112.5TB of compressed storage per cartridge. For surveillance deployments recording 8–12 cameras continuously, this replaces 4–6 standard HDDs with a single tape, reducing physical footprint and power draw in the archive tier.
• 1,000 MB/s read speed: Supports batch restore and e-discovery workflows at production-grade velocity. If you're retrieving 2 weeks of footage for incident investigation or legal hold, you move data at storage-class speed, not tape-archival crawl.
• Rewritable media format: The Q2079A supports both write-once and rewritable modes. Rewritable cartridges allow refresh-in-place for test or dev environments; write-once variants are available separately for compliance chains where cartridge immutability is required.

Durability and Data Integrity

• 30-year archival life: Barium Ferrite base material with 2,850 Oe coercivity and 545 kb/inch bit density ensure long-term stability. For surveillance footage destined for 5–10 year holds, or media archives with statutory 7-year retention, this spec means you won't face data degradation or bit-rot risk within the intended lifecycle.
• AES-256 encryption: Built-in 256-bit encryption protects data in transit and at rest without requiring separate encryption appliances. If your deployment handles PII (license plates, faces from public safety cameras), this eliminates a middleware layer in your archive compliance stack.
• Physical robustness: 1,035m tape length on 12.65mm media with 5.2-micron minimum thickness. The cartridge exterior dimensions (11.3 × 11.1 × 2.1 cm) fit standard library slots; weight of 0.28 kg is negligible in multi-cartridge operations.

Integration and Archive Workflows

• LTO-9 Ultrium standard: The Q2079A conforms to LTO-9 format, ensuring compatibility with any LTO-9 or backward-compatible tape drive (LTO-9 drives read LTO-8 and earlier). Major tape libraries (IBM TS4500, Quantum Scalar i6, Spectra Logic BlackPearl) recognize LTO-9 media natively, eliminating format translation delays.
• 8,960 data tracks: High track density means the drive head makes minimal passes to read or write the full cartridge, reducing mechanical wear and increasing drive longevity when cycling through dozens of cartridges in a library.

What's in the Box

• 1x HPE LTO-9 Ultrium 45TB Rewritable Cartridge (Q2079A)

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What's the difference between the Q2079A rewritable and LTO-9 write-once cartridges?

A: The Q2079A is a rewritable (RW) cartridge, allowing multiple write cycles and overwrite operations. Write-once variants lock data after initial write, ideal for WORM (Write Once, Read Many) compliance mandates. For surveillance, rewritable is standard; WORM is chosen only when regulatory chains of custody require cartridge immutability.

Q: Is the Q2079A compatible with my existing LTO-8 tape library?

A: The Q2079A requires an LTO-9 drive. LTO-9 drives can read LTO-8 and earlier cartridges, but LTO-8 drives cannot read Q2079A LTO-9 media. Check your library's firmware version and hardware specs before assuming backward compatibility.

Q: How long does a full 45TB cartridge take to write on an LTO-9 drive?

A: At the stated 1,000 MB/s sustained write speed, a full 45TB write takes approximately 12.5 hours of continuous operation. In practice, libraries manage multiple cartridges in parallel, so write time is not a per-cartridge constraint but a throughput-per-library concern.

Q: Does the Q2079A encryption slow down read or write performance?

A: The AES-256 encryption is hardware-accelerated in the tape drive (not the cartridge), so the 1,000 MB/s read speed and write throughput are unaffected. Encryption overhead is negligible at the tape interface.

Q: What's the warranty on the Q2079A?

A: The Q2079A carries a limited lifetime warranty covering defects in manufacture. Tape cartridges are consumables; the warranty does not cover wear from normal use or data loss due to archival degradation.

Eden Phillips

The HPE Q2079A delivers the economics and reliability you need for surveillance tape archival, especially in deployments that mandate long-term retention or compliance holds. The 45TB native capacity with 2.5:1 compression means you're storing 112.5TB per cartridge—enough to absorb 2–3 months of continuous multi-camera footage on a single piece of media. Combined with a 1,000 MB/s read speed, restore operations don't bottleneck your investigation timelines.

Technical Highlights:

• 45TB capacity + 2.5:1 compression ratio: Yields 112.5TB per Q2079A cartridge. For a 12-camera system at 4–5 Mbps average bitrate per camera, that's roughly 80–95 days of continuous storage per cartridge. One library with 10 cartridges spans 2–3 years without touching disk.
• 1,000 MB/s sustained read speed: Restores a full 45TB cartridge in 12.5 hours. When legal hold or incident investigation demands quick access to historical footage, you move data at wire-speed without waiting days for tape archival IO to crawl.
• AES-256 encryption built-in: No separate cipher appliance needed. If your footage stream includes biometric or license-plate data subject to privacy regulations, encryption happens at the tape interface without adding complexity to your VMS or storage middleware.

Deployment Considerations:

• LTO-9 drives are required; LTO-8 drives cannot read Q2079A cartridges. Verify your existing library supports LTO-9 before ordering, or budget for a drive upgrade if you're still on LTO-8.
• Rewritable format allows overwrite, but if your compliance workflow demands write-once (WORM), source LTO-9 write-once variants instead—the Q2079A is not suitable for immutable-archive mandates.

The Q2079A is the right cartridge for 3–7 year surveillance retention in regulated industries (gaming, transportation, financial services) where you need proven archival lifespan, encryption built into the media, and restore velocity that doesn't sacrifice investigation timelines. Skip this if your retention is under 6 months—disk-to-NAS is faster and cheaper for short-term hold.