Tape Storage Trundles On, Increases Yearly Volume to 128 Exabytes
“Tape storage is dead” is one prophecy that never came true. You want a slow, cost-effective, and reliable storage solution. not I went the way of the dodo.on the contrary; LTO (Linear Tape Open) Program Group (collection of companies specializing in tape) HPE, IBM and quantum Corporation) just announced that shipments increased 5% year-over-year compared to the same period last year.
This may not seem like much, but the bigger picture is that that 0.5% growth is on top of the staggering 40% volume increase seen last year. In a market that is seeing contractions, headcount reductions and declining sales volumes, this has to be seen as a win (after all, many big name hardware companies wanted to show these results in their latest earnings reports). would have been).
The LTO shipment report also shows the rapid adoption of the newest technology, LTO-9, compared to other technological advances. The LTO-8 continues to be an excellent seller for value-oriented buyers. Its 30 TB compressed capacity and up to 750 MB/s data transfer speed are nothing to scoff at. However, LTO-8 was replaced by his ninth iteration, with improved compressed data density (up to 45 TB) and transfer speeds of up to 900 MB/s.
Also, although the total number of tapes shipped is decreasing, it is important to remember that today’s tapes can provide the same storage capacity as many tapes of yesteryear. If your LTO-5 product stack requires 45 TB of compressed storage, you would consider purchasing 30 x 1.5 TB LTO-5 tapes. Volume is determined by capacity, not the number of units.
No, tape is not dead. And unlike what you’ve read so far, HDDs aren’t going extinct by 2028 either. But while his HDD shipments were down about 35% this year, tape still had room to grow. Technology will live much longer than we believe, and the AI boom of unstructured data means an increasing demand for cheap, reliable, and high-capacity storage. The fact that the growth of the LTO program is primarily driven by hyperscalers and enterprises is proof of that.