The upfront cost of tape is excessive though. It wasn’t always like that. And LTO-9 missed its capacity target: it’s 18TB (1.5x LTO-8) instead of 24TB as planned. Who knows what will happen later in the roadmap.
From LTO 1 to 9, the capacities (TB) were 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.5, 2.5, 6, 12, 18. LTO 6 also rather let the side down there.
Apparently though LTO 10 is going to get things back on track? I’ve seen claims it will achieve 36TB, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
The real problem is the environmental requirements for LTO 9 and newer have become too strict. The longevity is still (supposedly) fine, but the tapes are much more sensitive to temperature and humidity fluctuations when in use.
Brand new tapes have to be brought into the environment where they’ll be written for 36-48 hours to acclimatise before being used, and then have a 60-90 minute “calibration” in the drive before they can be written to.
Honestly, it could put the use of the newer types of tapes entirely out of the reach of many.
Oh I didn’t know about the new requirements. Less backwards compatibility too. IBM 3592 looks better but costs even more. Tape drives can’t be that much higher tech than HDDs, so if they cranked up the volume they could likely be way more affordable.
The upfront cost of tape is excessive though. It wasn’t always like that. And LTO-9 missed its capacity target: it’s 18TB (1.5x LTO-8) instead of 24TB as planned. Who knows what will happen later in the roadmap.
They’ve missed a couple of times over the years.
From LTO 1 to 9, the capacities (TB) were 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.5, 2.5, 6, 12, 18. LTO 6 also rather let the side down there.
Apparently though LTO 10 is going to get things back on track? I’ve seen claims it will achieve 36TB, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
The real problem is the environmental requirements for LTO 9 and newer have become too strict. The longevity is still (supposedly) fine, but the tapes are much more sensitive to temperature and humidity fluctuations when in use.
Brand new tapes have to be brought into the environment where they’ll be written for 36-48 hours to acclimatise before being used, and then have a 60-90 minute “calibration” in the drive before they can be written to.
Honestly, it could put the use of the newer types of tapes entirely out of the reach of many.
Oh I didn’t know about the new requirements. Less backwards compatibility too. IBM 3592 looks better but costs even more. Tape drives can’t be that much higher tech than HDDs, so if they cranked up the volume they could likely be way more affordable.
Fascinating!