The technology, based around a self-describing tape format developed by IBM, was adopted by the LTO Consortium in 2010.
Often external databases were used to maintain file metadata (file names, timestamps, directory hierarchy) to hold this data but these external databases were generally not designed for interoperability and tapes might or might not contain an index of their content.
LTFS technology was first implemented by IBM as a prototype running on Linux and Mac OS X during 2008/2009.
Based on feedback from this initial demonstration and experience within IBM the filesystem was overhauled in preparation for release as a product.
The LTFS Format Specification and filesystem implementation were released on April 12, 2010 with the support of IBM, HP, Quantum, and the LTO Consortium.
It also added support for sparse files; persistent file identifiers; virtual extended attributes for filesystem metadata and control - and defined minimum and recommended blocksize values for LTFS volumes, for compatibility across various HBA hardware implementations.
It is based on LTFS v2.5.1, and was adopted to ISO by a joint technical committee ISO/IEC JTC 1 Information Technology.
[citation needed] In spite of these disadvantages, there are several uses cases where LTFS formatted tape is superior to disk and other data storage technologies.
The LTFS-LE software automatically controls the tape library robotics to load and unload the necessary LTFS volumes.
[14] The Scalar LTFS Appliance was a file system that presented a Quantum tape library as an NAS share.
Because of this, it is possible to "roll back" the tape to an earlier state, in order to recover erroneously deleted (or incorrectly updated) files.