The Ultrium tape technology has been designed for outstanding reliability, top performance, and the lowest cost per GB. The Ultrium format is based on the best existing technologies; open standards allow for increased innovation. The cartridges are compatible with all Ultrium tape drives. For the first time since the introduction of the LTO format, the LTO-8 specification is only one generation backward compatible. The new LTO-8 drive cannot read or write LTO-6 BaFe and LTO-6 MP media. However, the LTO-8 drive can initialize new LTO-7 media, allowing these to become LTO-8 Type M media, which can store increased data amounts from 6 TB to 9 TB natively and from 15 TB to 22.5 TB. This gives the LTO-8 Type M tape a cost advantage per TB compared to an LTO-7 in an LTO-7 drive. The generation (Ultrium 8) has a capacity of up to 30 TB (compressed) and a transfer rate of up to 900 MB/s. It offers the highest level of reliability: 1,000,000 passes, 30 years, and 20,000 load and unload cycles.