The TS3100 Tape Library is an external 2U standalone or rack-mountable unit that incorporates a single Linear Tape-Open (LTO) IBM TotalStorage Ultrium 3 Tape Drive which more than doubles tape drive performance over the previous generation IBM LTO Ultrium 2 Tape Drives. It has a native data transfer rate of up to 80 MB/sec.

By using the IBM TotalStorage LTO Ultrium 400 GB Data Cartridge, the Ultrium 3 Tape Drive has the capability of writing twice as much data, up to 400 GB native physical capacity (800 GB with 2:1 compression). The TS3100 Tape Library capacity is 22 tape cartridges, providing a media physical capacity of up to 8.8 TB (17.6 TB with 2:1 compression) data storage per unit.

The TS3100 Tape Library must be ordered with feature #8043, an Ultrium 3 LVD SCSI Drive, or feature #8044, an Ultrium 3 4 Gb Fibre Channel Drive. These features allow connection to a wide spectrum of open systems servers. IBM Ultrium 3 Tape Drives can read and write LTO Ultrium 2 Data Cartridges at original Ultrium 2 capacities. IBM Ultrium 3 tape drives can also read LTO Ultrium 1 Data Cartridges with improved data rates of up to 20 MB/sec native data transfer rate (40 MB/sec with 2:1 compression).

The TS3100 Tape Library has two removable cartridge magazines, one on the left side (10 data cartridge slots) and one on the right (12 data cartridge slots). Additionally, the left magazine includes a single dedicated mail slot allowing for continuous library operation while importing/exporting media. A Remote Management Unit and a bar code reader are standard in the library, allowing the library to run in sequential or random access mode.

The TS3100 Tape Library capacity is 22 tape cartridges, providing a media physical capacity of up to 8.8 TB (17.6 TB with 2:1 compression) data storage per unit. It is supported for LVD Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) or Fibre channel attachment IBM System p and p5, IBM System i and i5, IBM System z and z9 products, IBM eServer xSeries, HP, Sun, UNIX, Linux, and Windows servers