176.5 EB of LTO Capacity Shipped in 2024
The LTO Program Technology Provider Companies, released their annual tape media shipment report, detailing Y/Y shipments through the fourth quarter of 2024.
The report reveals a record 176.5EB (1) of total tape capacity (compressed) shipped in 2024, representing a growth of 15.4% over 2023. This is a result of evolving infrastructure requirements fueled by continued enterprise implementation of modern technologies like AI and ML, which has contributed to significant unstructured data growth and shifts to lower cost hybrid cloud environments.
“Setting a new growth record for the fourth year in a row, LTO tape technology continues to prove its longevity as a leading enterprise storage solution,” said Bruno Hald, GM, secondary storage, Quantum. “Organizations navigating their way through the AI/ML era need to reconfigure their storage architectures to keep up, and LTO tape technology is an essential piece of the puzzle for those seeking a cost-friendly, sustainable, and secure solution to support modern technology implementation and the resulting data growth. We look forward to introducing the next iteration of LTO tape technology this year to bring enhanced storage capabilities to the enterprise.“
The key benefits of LTO tape technology include low TCO – as well as robust sustainability and security features. In addition, LTO-10, the latest format spec for LTO Ultrium tape drives and media, will provide the same blazing speed as LTO-9 with higher capacity and density (30TB/cartridge, up to 75TB compressed), quantum-safe encryption, and zero required optimization time to help prepare organizations for the fast-evolving future of data.
“Continued growth in LTO tape shipments shows the important role that tape plays in modern data architectures, especially as companies deal with rapidly growing amounts of data,” said Phil Goodwin, research VP, infrastructure software platforms, IDC. “In fact, tape’s unique combination of scalability, cost-efficiency, and cyber resilience makes it a valuable component for enterprises seeking secure, sustainable long-term storage.“
With shipped capacity reaching an all-time high in 2024, LTO tape technology demonstrates its continued relevance in the storage space as organizations require vast amounts of structured and unstructured data to make the most of modern technologies for maximum business impact. Increased storage needs can lead to surging costs, significant power consumption, and expanded security risks. However, LTO tape complements disk, flash, and cloud solutions in tiered storage architectures to provide a low-cost, last line of defense vs. ransomware and other security threats. Further, offline copies of LTO tapes separate data archives from the connected environment, providing greater assurances for data recovery. Whether an organization is archiving big data for analytics, managing hundreds of hours of media content, or simply transporting large files across storage environments, LTO tape provides businesses of all types with a cost-effective, sustainable, and protected solution for saving the data they need to power evolving workloads and drive business forward.
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