Tape storage is not dead yet - but $300 LTO-10 cartridges and inflated exabyte numbers won't help its cause

• LTO tape sets new capacity record with 176.5 exabytes shipped
• Compression inflates numbers masking real 70.6EB uncompressed data capacity
• LTO-10 costs rise threatening tape’s long-standing affordability advantage

The LTO Program, backed by HPE, IBM, and Quantum, has reported a new high in tape capacity shipments, with 176.5 Exabytes of LTO media shipped in 2024.

The announcement says this marks the fourth straight year of growth for the tape format, driven by expanding hybrid cloud strategies and the demands of AI and machine learning infrastructure.

The figure, though, comes with an asterisk. The 176.5EB is a compressed capacity total, not the raw figure. Based on the LTO program’s standard 2.5:1 compression ratio, the uncompressed total is closer to 70.6EB. That’s the actual amount of real data the tapes could hold if compression doesn’t apply.