Symply has unveiled a trio of products at NAB 2026. Included in the announcement are the new SymplyPRO and SymplyDIT LTO devices. Symply says they are the first LTO family with quad-interfaces including Thunderbolt 5.
What is LTO?
Linear Tape-Open (LTO) is a magnetic tape data storage technology used for backup, data archiving and data transfer. It’s also known as the LTO Ultrium format. First developed in the late 1990s, it’s an open standard rather than a proprietary one owned by any single company or brand. LTO uses cartridges (referred to as tapes) with hundreds of meters of half-inch (12.65 mm) wide tape media on a single reel. The latest standard, LTO-10, stores up to 30 TB or 40 TB per tape.
SymplyPRO and SymplyDIT
The quad-interface design gives you four ways to connect the new SymplyPRO and SymplyDIT to your computer. The options are Thunderbolt 5, USB4, SAS (serial-attached SCSI) and OCuLink. Symply says the new LTO family is the world’s first to include all four interfaces in a single product. That last option is worth a closer look. OCuLink delivers high-speed, low-latency connectivity to any desktop PC via an inexpensive PCIe riser card.
Configurations
Symply’s new LTO family includes single or dual drive devices in desktop or rackmount options. The devices support LTO-7 through LTO-10 with up to 40 TB native storage per cartridge. The new SymplyDIT models also feature dual TriMode 2.5″ bays. You can configure these with NVMe, SAS or SATA devices for up to 128 TB of storage. That means a combined ingest and archive workstation in a single box, which Symply says suits modern production workflows.
Other new products
Alongside SymplyPRO and SymplyDIT, Symply has announced SPARK ONE. It’s a portable Thunderbolt 5/USB4 NVMe enclosure with a swappable drive tray. SPARK ONE supports M.2 and 2.5″ NVMe devices from 2 TB to 128 TB, so you can repurpose drives you already own.
Then there’s CENTARA, a new enterprise storage orchestration platform. Symply says it unifies on-prem and cloud workflows. It also enables peer-to-peer file sharing without exposing data to intermediary cloud platforms. The main features include virtual desktop drives, hybrid sync and accelerated encrypted transfers up to 10 Gbps.
What we think
As camera resolutions climb, so do the sizes of the video files they create. Backing up that data takes ever larger and more expensive solutions. LTO is old technology, but it’s reliable. It also delivers high-capacity storage at a fraction of the price of hard disk drives or SSDs. The new SymplyPRO and SymplyDIT devices should cover every connection option you’re likely to need. The main downside of LTO is that the drives themselves cost thousands of dollars. As memory and hard drive prices keep climbing, though, the technology starts to look like a more economical option worth considering.
Pricing and availability
Symply is showcasing all of its new products at NAB 2026. SymplyPRO and SymplyDIT will be available from July 2026, with an early access program opening ahead of that date. SPARK ONE also ships in July 2026, and CENTARA arrives in mid-May 2026.
