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News Tape Storage Trundles On, Increases Yearly Volume to 128 Exabytes By Francisco Pires published 23 May 2023 For a storage medium said to be dying, tape is looking pretty good. * * * * * * * Comments (4) LTO and Tape storage media (Image credit: LTO Program) "Tape storage is dead" is one of those prophecies that has never seemed to actualize itself: demand for slow yet cost-effective and reliable storage solutions hasn't gone the way of the dodo. On the contrary; the LTO (Linear Tape-Open) Program group (a collective of tape specialist companies made up of HPE, IBM and Quantum Corporation) just announced a 5% YoY increase in shipments compared to the same period last year. That may not seem like much, but the bigger context is that that 0.5% growth rests atop a staggering 40% volume increase seen last year. In a market that's seen contractions, layoffs, and lowering sales volumes, that has to count as a win (a number of well-known hardware companies would have loved to show these results in their latest earnings report, after all). The LTO shipments report also demonstrate the speedy adoption of the latest technology, LTO-9, compared to other technological leaps. LTO-8 continues to be a great seller for value-conscious buyers -- its 30 TB of compressed capacity and up to 750 MB/s data transfer rates are nothing to scoff at. But LTO-8 has been superseded by the 9th iteration, which has increased compressed data density (up to 45 TB) and transfer rates of up to 900 MB/s. And while total number of tapes shipped has been declining, it's important to remember that a tape of today can offer the same storage capacity as many tapes of yesterday. If you wanted 45TB of compressed storage on an LTO-5 product stack, you'd be looking at buying 30 1.5 TB LTO-5 tapes -- volume lies in capacity, not on number of units. No, tape isn't dead, and contrary to what you may have read, HDDs aren't going to be extinct by 2028, either. But while HDD shipments cratered by around 35% this year, tape still found room to grow. Technologies last much longer than we give them credit for, and the AI boom for unstructured data means increased demand for cheap, reliable, and capacious storage. The LTO Program's growth being mostly fuelled by hyperscalers and enterprises is a testament to that. Image 1 of 2 LTO and Tape storage media YoY shipments for LTO-based storage technology increased 40% from 2020 through 2021, and continued its growth in 2022 (albeit at a much more modest .5%) (Image credit: LTO Program) LTO and Tape storage media Don't let the number of dwindling shipments fool you: as storage densities increase, an LTO-9 tape from 2023 is worth around 30 from 2010. (Image credit: LTO Program) Stay on the Cutting Edge Join the experts who read Tom's Hardware for the inside track on enthusiast PC tech news -- and have for over 25 years. We'll send breaking news and in-depth reviews of CPUs, GPUs, AI, maker hardware and more straight to your inbox. [ ][ ]Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands[ ]Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors[Sign me up] By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Francisco Pires Francisco Pires Social Links Navigation Freelance News Writer Francisco Pires is a freelance news writer for Tom's Hardware with a soft side for quantum computing. More about hardware AirJet Fanless, AirJet Cooling Tech Debuts in Zotac ZBox Mini PC Agilex 7 Materials Intel Announces Agilex 7 M-Series FPGAs with R-Tile, PCIe 5.0 and CXL 2.0 Support Latest Microsoft Build 2023 Windows 11 Moment 3 Update: Isolated x32 Apps, No RAR Support Yet See more latest > Topics Hardware Storage See all comments (4) [ ] 4 Comments Comment from the forums * cyrusfox Still an Industry/enterprise niche. I like the stability of offline hard storage, but have you looked at the price of an external Tape drive... Not going to be used by consumers any time soon. You can get LTO4/5/6 for a couple Hundred on ebay, missing out on the speed and capacity of the newer drives as well as most are SAS backplane... Maybe I'll pick up some discount LTO9 in 8 years or will it be entirely redundant by then? These speeds are much better than micro SD cards with a lot more shelf stability. Reply * Co BIY Tape is an appropriate storage medium for a large "Store Now, Crack later" enterprise. Reply * kanewolf cyrusfox said: Still an Industry/enterprise niche. I like the stability of offline hard storage, but have you looked at the price of an external Tape drive... Not going to be used by consumers any time soon. You can get LTO4/5/6 for a couple Hundred on ebay, missing out on the speed and capacity of the newer drives as well as most are SAS backplane... Maybe I'll pick up some discount LTO9 in 8 years or will it be entirely redundant by then? These speeds are much better than micro SD cards with a lot more shelf stability. Home users don't want to deal with the enterprise interfaces of tape drives. Fiber channel, maybe SAS. Not interfaces that are convenient for home or desktop users. Reply * Kamen Rider Blade The biggest problem is the single reel design of LTO Tape Cassettes. Depending on the machine to "Not Screw Up" and eat your tape and forcing a complicated method to open up the machine to get your tape out. That's a big No/No in terms of end user simplicity and reliability. I prefer the old 2 Reel Tape Cassettes with integral Spools/ Reels. Alot of the major issues is the fundamental designs are targeted towards complicated Enterprise Tape machines instead of building high reliability / simple tape mechanisms mimic-ing Digital Cassette Tapes that don't tug on the tape reel from the cassette Reply * View All 4 Comments Most Popular [missing-im]Windows 365 Boot Lets You Boot Directly Into the Cloud By Ash HillMay 24, 2023 [missing-im]AMD and Intel Battle for Windows 11 AI Acceleration Lead By Mark TysonMay 24, 2023 [missing-im]Intel Core i9 Buyers Can Add a 280 GB Optane SSD for $1 at Amazon By Mark TysonMay 24, 2023 [missing-im]Where to Buy Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 8GB GPUs: Links and Prices, All Custom Cards By Aaron KlotzMay 24, 2023 [missing-im]Apple Mixed Reality Headset Rumors Ramp with Targeted WWDC Invites By Brandon HillMay 24, 2023 [missing-im]Nvidia Be Damned, RTX 4070 is Getting Illicit Blower-Style Cooler Treatment By Aaron KlotzMay 23, 2023 [missing-im]Tape Storage Trundles On, Increases Yearly Volume to 128 Exabytes By Francisco PiresMay 23, 2023 [missing-im]New Intel "Core Ultra 7" CPU Benchmark Spotted By Aaron KlotzMay 23, 2023 [missing-im]AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X CPU Back Down to the Low Price of $296: Real Deals By Stewart BendleMay 23, 2023 [missing-im]16-Pin Connectors Are Still Melting On RTX 4090 GPUs By Zhiye LiuMay 23, 2023 [missing-im]Kioxia's BG6 M.2 2230 SSD is 1.7x Faster Than BG5, Doubles Capacity By Mark TysonMay 23, 2023 MOST POPULARMOST SHARED 1. 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