Magnetic tape is going strong in the age of AI, and it's about to get even better – new design materials and capacity boosts mean it's still an enterprise favorite

Magnetic tape storage might seem like a relic of a bygone era, but it’s still going strong in 2025 – and new upgrades mean it’s set to get even better.

The LTO Program, a joint initiative between IBM, Quantum Corp, and HPE, has unveiled a new generation of LTO Ultrium data cartridges offering enterprises up to 40 TB of native capacity - marking a significant improvement on previous generations.

The launch of the new range comes in direct response to surging AI-related data storage demands, with the capacity boost underpinned by “Aramid”, a new base film material which offers longer tape lengths.

“Aramid permits the manufacture of significantly thinner and smoother media, enabling longer tape lengths in a standard LTO Ultrium cartridge form factor,” the organization noted in a statement.

“This material innovation provides an extra 10 TB of native capacity than the currently available 30 TB LTO-10 cartridge, which is manufactured using different materials.”

Stephen Bacon, VP for data protection solutions product management at HPE, said the new cartridges are aimed at enterprises spanning an array of industries dealing with high data volumes, from manufacturing to financial services.

“AI has turned archives into strategic assets,” Bacon commented.

“The new 40 TB LTO-10 cartridge will help enterprise-class organizations – across healthcare, financial services, media, research, manufacturing, the public sector and beyond – consolidate petabytes efficiently, strengthen cyber resiliency with true offline air-gapping, and keep long-term retention affordable and sustainable.”

The magnetic tape renaissance

Magnetic tape storage has been going through something of a renaissance in recent years, and the advent of generative AI in late 2022 has played a key factor in this revival.

Indeed, figures published by the LTO Program in early 2024 showed a whopping 152.9 exabytes of total (compressed) tape capacity was shipped in 2023. That record was broken in July this year, with 176.5 exabytes shipped.

This marked the fourth consecutive year of growth for tape storage, underlining its continued popularity.

Tape storage has a number of distinct advantages, including low cost, durability, and easy portability. According to previous analysis from the LTO Program, companies using tape recorded an 86% lower total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to disk storage.

TCO compared to cloud storage was also 66% lower across a 10 year period, figures showed.

Notably, the use of tape for unstructured data storage also adds to the appeal, with this now vital in the training process for large language models (LLMs).

Tape is only going to get better

Long-term, tape storage is only going to improve, at least if the LTO Program’s roadmap is to be believed.

Through generations 11 through to 14, enterprises can expect to see significant capacity gains, eventually peaking with a 913 TB cartridge.

“The new capacity points will prioritize reliability and compelling value in terms of cost per terabyte, and ensure everyday LTO Ultrium tape solutions will remain a practical and affordable storage choice for every type of business or workload,” the LTO Program noted.

“Meanwhile, the new maximum capacity of 913 TB for LTO-14 will reduce the time needed to store and recover data, while preserving exabyte-scale growth paths for tape libraries.”

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