LTO compatibility

My good friend works in our data receiving dept where they work with tape drives all the time.. This was his response.. It probably wont help much..

urs3: Is any one tell me that LTO3 tape Cartridge is compatible with LTO2 Tape Drive
ilam: my guess would be no
ilam: lol
urs3: Someone asked on Toms Forums, but no one has posted a response.. i wasnt sure if you knew anything about those formats..
ilam: well, it's just like anything else...
ilam: the newer **** won't work in the older drives
ilam: and sometimes.... just sometimes.... it's retro-compatible

I just re-read it again, and I dont think it "probably wont help much", I think it wont help at all..   My bad.

He just sent me this though.. This may actually be of use...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTO3

Thanks for the info.

Someone had told me that it will not work, but I just wanted to confirm.

Thanks once again.  

For LTO, older tapes are backward compatible with newer drives as follows:

- The previous generation tape can be read/written.
- The generation previous to that can be read.
- Generations before that are not compatible.

So, for example, an LTO-4 drive can read/write LTO-4, can read/write LTO-3, can read LTO-2, and is incompatible with LTO-1.

Newer tapes cannot be used in older drives under any circumstances. So, to the OP, an LTO-3 tape cannot be used in an LTO-2 drive.

Yes you cannot have backward compatability with the LTO drives.

It's like CDs and DVDs. Old CDs work in a new DVD drive. But nice, shiny new DVDs won't work in an old CD drive.