Reports from the Field
Preparing the migration from LTO-6 to LTO-8

In 2014 we have migrated our company archive from LTO-4 to LTO-6 and Reto Kromer shared many times with colleagues and interested persons the experiences we made. Seven years later we are preparing the migration from LTO-6 to LTO-8.

What and how

The aim of this meeting is to present and to discuss with colleagues the results of the preliminary tests we run, in order to plan the actual migration. One of the results is the comparison between different checksum algorithms. We have analysed the unkeyed cryptographic hash functions MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 and SHA-512, as well as the non-cryptographic hash functions CRC-32, xxHash 32, xxHash 64 and xxHash 128.

An informal Q&A session will round up the formal presentation. Sadly, the traditional light refreshments cannot be served either this time …

When and where

Online on Friday the 22^nd of January 2021, starting at 11 o’clock sharp here in Switzerland (that’s 10:00 UTC). We will use a Jitsi-based platform and the link will be provided in proper time.

As usual, the admission to our Reports from the Field is free, but a registration is required, as the seats are limited to a dozen or so, in order to allow in-depth technical discussion and information exchange. The attendees should be familiar with archival file formats, LTO storage and workflows.

Notes

• Reto Kromer: “On the Bright Side of Data Migrations”, in IASA Journal, n. 49 (December 2018)
• We are very unhappy that our generosity is often betrayed, as many of our materials are distributed without naming their origin. Increasingly, others are even shamelessly claiming authorship of our work, which is just disgusting behaviour. And that’s the very reason why some resources are no longer freely available, but have been moved to password-protected parts of our website.

2023-02-17