The LTO Program Technology Provider Companies released a report on May 23 that the total capacity of LTO tape shipped in 2022 reached 148.3 exabytes. The caveat is that it is the total estimated compressed capacity, so this is a bit of marketing hype rather than reality. Actual uncompressed native LTO storage shipped in 2022 was likely “only” around 60 exabytes.
I was curious how that compared to hard drive shipments in 2022. Seagate alone, for example, shipped a total of 631.5 exabytes of hard drive capacity in 2022.
Still, it is interesting to see LTO not only survive but thrive as a large-scale backup technology.
One of the reasons is that LTO has continued to steadily increase tape capacities, with current generation LTO-9 supporting 18tb uncompressed and the group controlling the technology having a roadmap that takes LTO up to 576tb by generation 14.
