New LTO Roadmap Released
The LTO technology providers Hewlett Packard Enterprise, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), and Quantum Corporation released a new roadmap for the LTO Ultrium standard on September 6, 2022. The new roadmap extends to the 14th generation—two generations beyond the previous roadmap, which ended with LTO-12.
Upon launch, LTO-14 will store 576 TB natively and 1,440 TB compressed (2.5:1 compression). With 1.44 PB of storage capacity for compressed data, the petabyte barrier will be broken per LTO tape. The amount of data that currently requires 32 LTO-9 tapes will fit on a single LTO-14 tape.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise - Storage
As early as the end of 2020, IBM and Fujifilm demonstrated under laboratory conditions that 580 TB could be stored natively on a tape cartridge with a length of 1255 meters (LTO-9: 1035 meters) using Strontium Ferrite technology. The number of tracks on LTO-14 will likely exceed 100,000 (!) (compared to 8,960 tracks on LTO-9). The LTO-14 is expected to be available on the market at the start of the 2030s.
Note: Generations 1–5 assume 2:1 compression. Generations 6–12 assume 2.5:1 compression (achieved through a larger buffer). Source: The LTO Program. The LTO Ultrium roadmap may change at any time and reflects only goals and objectives. Linear Tape-Open, LTO, the LTO logo, Ultrium, and the Ultrium logo are registered trademarks of HPE, IBM, and Quantum in the USA and other countries.