Tape Is So Dead, 152.9 EB Of LTO Media Shipped Last Year
The Register, Monday, May 27th, 2024
Tape - as a digital storage medium - has been considered dead for your correspondent's entire 29-year career. But that didn't stop manufacturers behind the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) standard shipping 152.9* exabytes worth of the stuff last year.
HPE, IBM, and Quantum are the only three LTO Program Technology Providers, and last week jointly released The Annual LTO Program Media Shipment Report 'PDF' which revealed that 152.9-exabyte figure along with the tidbit that it represents 3.14 percent shipment growth compared to 2022.
The three attributed some of that growth to "rapid data generation and the increased infrastructure requirements of hyperscalers and enterprises." Which is good news for tape - if hyperscalers are using it that likely means demand will continue for the foreseeable future.