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Linear Tape-Open (or LTO) is a magnetic tape data storage technology originally developed in the late 1990s as an open standards alternative to the proprietary magnetic tape formats that were available at the time. Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Seagate initiated the LTO Consortium, which directs development and manages licensing and certification of media and mechanism manufacturers. Seagate's tape division was spun-off as Certance and is now part of Quantum Corp.
The standard form-factor of LTO technology goes by the name Ultrium, the original version of which was released in 2000 and could hold 100 GB of data in a cartridge. A version released in 2010 can hold 1.5 TB in a cartridge of the same size.
Upon introduction, LTO Ultrium rapidly defined the super tape market segment and has consistently been the best-selling super tape format.[1][2] LTO is widely used with small and large computer systems, especially for backup.