Many IT professionals thought a few technologies would have (or maybe should have) expired by now. One (and we have written about it several times) is Fibre Channel. The other is tape, specifically LTO Ultrium format tape. Guess what? Tape continues its steady growth, marking a 3.14% growth over 2022 results.
Many IT professionals thought a few technologies would have (or maybe should have) expired by now. One (and we have written about it several times) is Fibre Channel. The other is tape, specifically LTO Ultrium format tape. Guess what? Tape continues its steady growth, marking a 3.14% growth over 2022 results. And it’s no wonder with the likes of HPE, IBM, and Quantum Corporation as LTO Program Technology Providers.
The LTO Program Technology Provider Companies (TPCs) have released their annual tape media shipment report. This report provides a detailed analysis of year-over-year shipments through the fourth quarter of 2023. The data reveals a record shipment of 152.9 Exabytes (EB) of total tape capacity (compressed) in 2023, marking a 3.14% growth over 2022. This growth is attributed to the rapid data generation and increased infrastructure demands of hyperscalers and enterprises.
Report Insights
LTO tape technology continues to indicate steady annual growth. According to G. Kyle Fitze, Vice President of OEM & Partner-Enabled Products at HPE Storage, the demand for higher storage capacities and the recognition of LTO tape’s benefits drive this growth. Fitze emphasized HPE’s commitment to improving and innovating LTO tape technology to meet organizations’ evolving needs.
LTO tape technology’s benefits include low total cost of ownership, robust security (here’s a good piece on that), and enhanced sustainability. Organizations can use the LTO Ultrium TCO Calculator to assess the cost-effectiveness of LTO tape. The technology also offers strong protection against increasingly sophisticated data breaches.
With the continuous rise in unstructured data, driven by advancements in technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), LTO tape technology provides a cost-effective and sustainable solution for managing large volumes of data.
The latest LTO Ultrium tape drives and media format specification, LTO generation 9, offer significantly more capacity and higher performance than its predecessor. Key features include full backward read and write compatibility with LTO-8 cartridges, multi-layer security support with hardware-based encryption, immutable WORM (Write-Once, Read-Many) functionality, and fast data access with the Linear Tape File System (LTFS). LTO generation 9 boasts a 45TB compressed tape cartridge, representing a 50% capacity increase over LTO generation 8 and a 1400% increase over LTO-5 technology, with transfer speeds of up to 400 MB/s (native) and 1,000 MB/s (compressed).
The extended roadmap for the LTO Program indicates a goal for up to 1.4 Petabytes (PB) of compressed capacity per cartridge by LTO generation 14.
Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Format
The LTO Ultrium format is a robust, scalable, and adaptable open tape format developed by HPE, IBM, and Quantum Corporation. It is designed to address the growing demands of data protection in midrange to enterprise-class server environments. The LTO Ultrium format offers greater performance, capacity, and reliability, combining linear multi-channel, bi-directional formats with advancements in servo technology, data compression, track layout, and error correction.
The format is licensed to multiple manufacturers, ensuring a competitive market and compliance with free-interchange objectives, which is central to the LTO Program. The roadmap outlines the intended direction of technology development, although it is subject to change and should not be solely relied upon for purchasing decisions.
For additional information, visit the LTO Program website at www.lto.org.
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