- Fujifilm’s 40TB tape increases archiving capacity without requiring businesses to redesign their infrastructure
- Offline storage remains relevant as ransomware pressure reshapes enterprise data protection strategies
- Bands continue to gain ground where long-term conservation costs dominate technical decisions
Following the initial announcement of a new generation of LTO Ultrium cartridges offering 40TB of native capacity, Fujifilm is launching this magnetic tape.
The Fujifilm 40TB LTO Ultrium 10 Data Cartridge targets businesses facing increased ransomware incidents and growing regulatory pressure.
It is also designed for organizations managing increasing volumes of archival data produced by analytics and machine learning workloads.
Fujifilm 40TB LTO-10 cartridge
The new cartridge increases native capacity to 40TB and up to 100TB through compression, expanding beyond the previous 30TB version released in mid-2025.
This cartridge supports a maximum transfer rate of 400 MB/s native and up to 1000 MB/s compression, and includes internal EEPROM cartridge memory with a 32 KB electromagnetic induction antenna.
The tape measures 12.65 mm in width, 4.0 μm in thickness and 1337 m in length.
Fujifilm attributes the capacity increase to refined magnetic particle engineering and thinner base film construction, which allows for greater tape length within the same cartridge dimensions.
The cartridge remains compatible with existing LTO-10 drives, limiting additional infrastructure investments for current users.
An update concerns the expansion of the recommended temperature and humidity ranges.
Support for operating temperatures between 15°C and 35°C and humidity levels up to 80% in the range of 15°C to 25°C allows deployment in regions where climate control may be inconsistent.
This change portends broader use beyond tightly managed data centers, including secondary facilities and regional archives.
Fujifilm emphasizes durability and stable read and write performance, although actual reliability under prolonged stressful conditions always depends on deployment discipline.
Bands continue to compete primarily on long-term profitability rather than raw performance.
Although SSD platforms dominate active workloads due to their latency advantages, their economics become less favorable at extreme retention scales.
Tape is often deployed alongside disk-based systems rather than replacing them, serving as a lower-cost archiving tier in multi-tier storage architectures.
Despite repeated claims that physical media is obsolete, magnetic tape continues to play a defined role in enterprise storage strategies.
Its appeal lies primarily in offline data isolation, which limits exposure to network-based attacks.
As ransomware and other cyberattacks continue to put pressure on businesses, magnetic tape remains a viable option due to its consistent read and write behavior over extended periods of time.
Unlike cloud storage platforms that remain permanently accessible via network interfaces, tape cartridges can be physically removed from active systems.
This isolation model remains attractive for backup, compliance archiving, and disaster recovery scenarios where recovery integrity matters more than access speed.
Industry shipment figures show continued growth in LTO adoption, largely driven by AI data retention requirements and compliance mandates.
This trend contrasts with frequent public assertions by figures such as Elon Musk, who has asserted that physical storage media represents an outdated constraint in a software-centric future.
The purchasing behavior of companies suggests a more cautious interpretation of these statements.
The Fujifilm LTO Ultrium 10 40TB Data Cartridge will be available from January 2026, although pricing has not been announced.
It will be delivered in three configurations: LTO FB UL-10 40.0T with 5 cartridges x 4, LTO FB UL-10 40.0T LP20 with 20 cartridges x 1 and LTO FB UL-10 40.0T ECO with 20 cartridges x 1.
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