
Data seen by Tom’s Hardware from the LTO Program Technology Provider Companies (TPCs) makes it clear that tape storage is a long way from becoming obsolete. In fact, the latest numbers from the TPCs (namely, HPE, IBM, and Quantum) suggest that tape storage shipments have broken records with their fourth consecutive year of growth. Going by the numbers, there were 176.5 exabytes of compressed LTO tape capacity shipped in 2024. Shipments were thus up 15.4% vs the prior year.
The TPEs credit this continued growth of LTO to enterprises relying on tape to fuel their implementations of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) technologies. Tape fills a significant niche in modern storage architectures, complementing the likes of disk, flash, and cloud solutions.