Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Tom’s Hardware
Tom’s Hardware
Technology
Mark Tyson

Months after Elon Musk's DOGE crusade to wipe it out, LTO tape storage is bigger than ever — a record 176.5 exabytes shipped in 2024, the fourth consecutive year of growth

LTO tape storage system.

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.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.