LTO drives—LTFS, Retrospect, Bareos, or something else?

For LTO tape drives, the choice of software depends on how you plan to use them and the scale of your backups:

1. LTFS (Linear Tape File System)

Treats the tape like a normal filesystem, allowing drag-and-drop of files.

Simple for archiving and sharing tapes between systems.

Not ideal for incremental backups or managing large datasets efficiently.

2. Retrospect

Commercial software with automated backups, scheduling, and cataloging.

Works with multiple drives and tape libraries.

Suitable for businesses that need regular, managed backups.

3. Bareos / Bacula

Open-source software for automated tape rotation, incremental backups, and large libraries.

Supports Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Setup is more complex but works well for IT teams managing many tapes or servers.

4. Other options

IBM Spectrum Protect or Tivoli Storage Manager for enterprise setups with automated policies and retention management.

Veeam Backup & Replication can write to LTO via a tape server.

Simple scripts using tar or rsync with LTFS for Linux/Unix systems.