I think Paul gave an EXCELLENT answer, and I agree completely.

Remember that IBM is NOT marketing LTO as a replacement for 3590; but as a
competitor for DLT, so ask why your organization bought the 3590's in the
first place....?

I have yet to see any statistics for mean time to failure on LTO media or
drives.  They may turn out to be as reliable as 3590's in the long run, but
LTO has a BIG job ahead to stand up to the record of the 3590 and it remains
to be seen if LTO can do that.  If you have a heavy load or many TB of data,
you should probably stick with 3590.  For a mid-size or small installation,
LTO should do fine.

TSM pushes the capability of drives and durability of media harder than any
other application I've ever seen.  Unlike other dump-restore products which
write large chunks of data once, then rewrites over the tapes completely
after 3-4 weeks in the dump cycle, TSM uses the tapes constantly due to
reclaims.  It uses a drive almost like a direct-access device; there is a
LOT of start-stop and back-hitch acvitity, lots and lots of appending small
amounts of data to existing tape files.

What I usually tell people: if your organization is accustomed to using 4mm
or 8mm tape or DLT, LTO should be a step up and you will probably be happy
with it.  If you are accustomed to the capability and reliability  (both
media and drives) of enterprise-class devices like 3490, 3590, or STK 9840,
you probably won't be happy with something less.

My opinions and nobody else's,

Wanda Prather