LTO Generation 10 is here!

IBM announced the LTO Generation 10 30 TB tape cartridge and full-height tape drive earlier this week. The announcement brought back memories. I was a member of the IBM LTO Generation 1 launch team in 2000. At the time of the initial launch of LTO Gen 1, there was a sense of skepticism about its potential success in the IT industry. There were already many different incompatible tape formats from various companies in a variety of form factors, including 4mm, 8mm, and ½ inch. And here was the LTO consortium: IBM, Seagate, and HP, adding one more. The fact that the LTO consortium has remained intact in a rapidly changing industry is an impressive accomplishment.

Of course, the IT environment is dramatically different today. We are witnessing the creation of an immense amount of data. Since late 2022, Artificial intelligence has experienced exponential growth, driving unprecedented increases in the amount of data created and stored. Surprisingly, we estimate that between 60 and 80 percent of all data is infrequently or rarely accessed, yet much of it resides on more expensive and energy-consuming HDDs. Additionally, AI has driven significant growth in data center energy requirements. For example, the recent Lawrence Berkeley Lab (December 2024) report estimated that data centers used 4.4% of all power in the United States in 2023, up from 1.9% in 2018.

Here are some of the announcement highlights:

• LTO Generation 10 tape provides a 30 TB native capacity cartridges, a 66% increase from LTO 9.

• The tape drive's data rate is 400 MB/s, and it supports 12 GB SAS and 32 GB Fibre Channel. 

• It also supports encryption using AES-256 and the new Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) key certificates.

• The drive introduces a new advanced head guide assembly that enhances Tape Dimension Stability, eliminating the need for tape optimization.

• The tape drive and media will begin shipping in June.

LTO 10 is being integrated into tape libraries and standalone solutions. IBM announced support for the new drive in their Diamondback, TS4300, and TS4500 tape libraries. Spectralogic, Symply, and Quantum have also announced support in their solutions.

Tape remains the most energy-efficient storage medium. Moving inactive data from HDD or SSD can dramatically reduce energy consumption. Comparing HDDs to LTO 9 with 100 cartridges/drive, tape used 94% less energy per TB. LTO 10 will be even more energy efficient. The challenge for IT organizations is to securely, sustainably, and affordably store the massive amounts of information that will be generated in the coming years. The announcement of LTO 10 will help organizations manage this immense amount of data with a scalable, affordable, sustainable, and secure solution.