- The 10th generation LTO is finally there, four years after the launch of the 9th generation
- It will have a capacity of 30 TB, much less than the 48 TB initially planned
- The LTO roadmap extends to 576 TB which may not appear before 2040 at the current rate
If you want to save dozens of data petacts or even more, here is good news for you. Without much fanfare, IBM, Symply and Spectral Logic have made LTO-10 announcements separately in the last 48 hours.
Announced in 2014, LTO-10 is the 10th iteration of open linear tape technology. This tape support can now reach a native capacity of 30 TB and a tablet of 75 to drugs (using the industry ratio of 2.5: 1).
Even more surprising is that the transfer rate remained at 400 MB by which progressive speed improvements were the standard in the previous nine generations. In theory, filling an entire strip would take a little less than a day.
Lto takes his time
Even if 30 to seems fantastic, it is much smaller than what was initially proposed. Eight years ago When the LTO organization has published its Ultrium roadmap, it listed the LTO-10 as a model of 48 TB, which fell to 36 TB in the most recent, from 2022, and now the actual product launched with “ `only ’30 to.
It is 67% higher than the capacity of the new LTO-9 band (18 TB) But only 25% higher than that of the old alternate LTO-9 band capacity (24 TB). In other words, six LTO-10 strips can replace 10 LTO-9 bands.
At the time, the LTO consortium said to us: “Dubbing the capacity approximately every two years is always possible on the technical level for LTO band technology and the LTO program plans to be able to return to this model in future generations”.
For what? Perhaps because the inheritance (hard drives) and exotic competitions (ceramic, DNA, silica) are not as convincing as originally planned. THE The first 30 TB hard drive was launched in January 2024 with 100 TB hard drives which should make their debut by 2030. LTO-9 hit the market in September 2021 And was delayed by a set of reverse.
What is the next step for LTO?
So, we can expect the LTO-11 to be launched in 2029. The last LTO-14 road map goes up to LTO-14 with an indigenous capacity of 576 TB, but this document will be almost certainly modified due to the change in unexpected (and disappointing) capacity of LTO-10.
Symplice, a storage equipment expert who launched the first LTO-9 band reader, will start to ship LTO-10 products from mid-June 2025 from $ 11,995 (SAS) with devices equipped with other interfaces (Ethernet and Thunderbolt) more expensive.
Symplicity told Techradar Pro that they would soon provide details on LTO-10 media prices. They also told us: “The LTO-10 media have a length of 1035 m, which is the same as the LTO-9. It is a high density on the media that allow the greatest capacity. ”
The LTO-9 is currently the cheapest in the LTO family, costing about $ 5 per TB; A gang of 30 TB would probably sell more than $ 150. IBM, one of the founders of LTO, also announced a LTO 10 band reader, while the logic of specters Announced the support of new media.
25 years old and always strong
It has already been a quarter of a century since LTO-1 hit the market and although he had many criticisms (including in the US government), its resilience, its value for money and its ability to adapt to countless storage requests make it a reliable partner regardless of the use.
We witnessed the disappearance of competitors (as Sony’s ODA) and while alternative storage forms (Especially in Céabyte) Show an exciting potential, they are always very far from reaching the same status as the band.
