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Supported Hardware

Updated August 30, 2026

Hiberden runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS, and writes to tape, local disk, NAS, and cloud. macOS runs on Apple Silicon: macOS blocks the first open until you allow it under Privacy & Security, which you do once. See Installing on macOS. Only the tape Destination needs special hardware. For the OS side, see System requirements.

Tape: LTO-9 through LTFS

At launch, Hiberden supports LTO-9 tape, accessed through LTFS (the open Linear Tape File System). Because Hiberden treats tape as an LTFS file system rather than driving the hardware directly, it works with an LTFS-capable LTO-9 drive or library. Archives are written as standard TAR, so the contents are readable with standard tools, not only with Hiberden.

LTO-10 is not supported.

A real drive needs vendor LTFS software

LTFS is separate software, not part of Hiberden. On Windows, the supported implementation is IBM's LTFS (Single Drive Edition); on Linux it is the open-source LTFS implementation. Hiberden auto-detects it in the standard install locations, and you can point at a custom install path in Settings > Tape. If the LTFS Windows service is stopped (a fresh install often needs a reboot or a service start), Hiberden detects that state and offers a one-click "Start service". The full setup walkthrough is in Tape (LTO-9 via LTFS).

No drive yet? Use the virtual tape drive

Hiberden includes a built-in virtual tape drive backed by a local folder, so you can evaluate the tape workflow with no hardware attached and no vendor LTFS software: write an archive to a cartridge, read it back, verify it, and restore it. It is for evaluation, not protected storage.

Everything else needs no special hardware

  • Local disk is any drive on the machine Hiberden runs on.
  • NAS is any network share that machine can reach: a UNC path or mapped drive on Windows, a mounted share on Linux or macOS.
  • Cloud is any S3-compatible account; no appliance required. See Supported cloud providers.

For how copies on each of these are proven intact, see How verification works, and for arranging them into a resilient set, the 3-2-1 model.

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