Preserve 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 more 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, and compliance requirements are becoming more stringent.
The OWC Mercury Pro LTO is the answer to this challenge. This easily integrated tape backup and 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.
Archiving Made Drag and Drop Easy
There’s a priceless convenience of familiarity in using the OWC Mercury Pro LTO to protect your data. By 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 and from tape is drag-and-drop easy. Compatibility has never been simpler. 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-7 uses 6TB LTO-7 tapes, the previous generation 2.5TB LTO-6 tapes, and can read LTO-5 tapes. The enclosure is also designed to use future next generation LTO drives.
Instant ROI
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.
120TB of Footage Data from One Action Movie Shot
- 20 x 6TB HDDs @ $120/drive = $2400
- 20 x 6TB LTO-7s @$56/tape = $1120 (53% lower cost)
That’s a 53% savings vs HDD-based archive storage on just one project!
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 combined with the longest life expectancy among all storage options.
Meets Stringent Regulations
Whether you need to keep sensitive data secure during transportation, or ensure irreplaceable data will be archive protected, the OWC Mercury Pro LTO enables healthcare, financial, and related industries to meet strict legal and regulatory procedures for data confidentiality and integrity. 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 cable connected to your Mac or PC. You can also optionally enhance your workflow by:
- add up to a 16TB SATA/SAS 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 interface2
- keeping your notebook charged with the 85W Thunderbolt 3 port3
Use Case Spotlight: Netflix Data Management Requirements
LTO solutions like the Mercury Pro LTO have become a workflow requirement for production companies like Netflix to safeguard original camera footage, provide off-site backup, and fulfill long-term archiving of series and films.
Employing a 3:2:1 rule, Netflix specifies its partners must:
- hold at least 3 copies of all Original Camera Footage (OCF) and audio at all times.
- store the copies on 2 different types of media.
- maintain at least 1 backup offsite.
In every “rule” as well as in their acceptable archival formats, Netflix lists LTO tapes as a critical component in meeting their partner data management requirements.
Versital and Flexible
Designed to work with Mac, Windows, and various flavors of Linux including Red Hat, Mint, Ubuntu, SuSE, CentOS, Fedora, etc., the Mercury Pro LTO will immediately fit into your workflow and expand your archive options. It is ready to work with industry-leading archiving and management software including Pomfort Silverstack XT, Hedge Canister, YoYotta LTFS, XenData6 Workstation, Archiware P5, and more.
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 OWC ThunderBlade, OWC Express 4M2, OWC Envoy Pro FX, and OWC Envoy Pro SX; desktop options like the OWC ThunderBay line-up; and internal drive options like OWC Accelsior 4M2 and OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 2.5-inch SSD, OWC is the one project source that does it all for all those that create data.
- 15TB / 750MB/s with 2.5:1 data compression.
- Thunderbolt 2/Thunderbolt compatibility requires a certified Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 (mDP) adapter and a Thunderbolt 2 cable (available separately). This configuration provides data transfer at up to 20Gb/s but does not support notebook charging.
- 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.
OWC Mercury Pro Specs
Storage
| Number of Tape Slots | 1 |
| Supported Tape Types | LTO-5, LTO-6, LTO-7 |
| Supported Tape Capacities | 6 GB (Native) 15 GB (Compressed) |
| Supported Compression Rates | 2.5:1 |
| Total Storage Capacity | 0 to 2 TB |
| Number of SSD/HDD Bays | 1 x 2.5″/3.5″ |
| Number of Included Storage Drives | 1 |
| RAID | None |
General
| Data Transfer Rate | 300 MB/s (Native) 750 MB/s (Compressed) |
| OS Compatibility | Linux Windows macOS *As of April, 2022: Check with manufacturer for the most up-to-date compatibility |
| Barcode Reader | No |
| Connectivity | 2 x USB-C Thunderbolt 3 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 DisplayPort 1.4 |
Power
| Power Consumption | 200 W |
| AC Input Power | 90 to 264 VAC, 50 / 60 Hz at 1.0 to 1.8 A |
| DC Input Power | 12 VDC at 16.7 A |
Environmental
| Operating Temperature | 41 to 95°F / 5 to 35°C |
| Operating Humidity | 8 to 90% |
| Operating Altitude | -997.4 to 9999′ / -304 to 3048 m |
| Storage Temperature | -4 to 140°F / -20 to 60°C |
| Storage Humidity | 5 to 95% |
| Storage Altitude | -997.4 to 39,999′ / -304 to 12,192 m |
Physical
| Form Factor | Desktop |
| Dimensions | 6.1 x 9.1 x 11.5″ / 15.5 x 23.1 x 29.2 cm |
| Weight | 12.21 lb / 5.54 kg |
