Sony and Fujifilm are locked in a battle for tape supremacy, with the latter revealing it is preparing for tape media with an areal density of 224Gbit per sq. inch, which translates to a real life capability of around 400TB.
Fujifilm – which has simply introduced its first Tape-as-a-Service offering – is betting on Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) as opposed to the favored Barium Ferrite, which is utilized in most LTO tapes, the capability of which at present top 12TB (uncompressed) or 30TB (compressed utilizing an industry ratio of 2.5:1).
LTO-8 will make manner for LTO-9 later this year and, with the last 4 LTO generations shipped over the previous six years, one can count on the next 4 (LTO-10, LTO-11, LTO-12 and LTO-13) to be available by 2026 (depending on market situations).
Tape supremacy
At 384TB, a single LTO-13 tape is more likely to be the one greatest unit of storage in the world, far outclassing hard disk drives (with capacities stalling, having grown by only 2TB per generation) and solid state drives, which reached 100TB in 2018 after which stopped rising.
It might take a really daring individual certainly to guess in opposition to LTO being the first media to reach 1PB (that’s one million Gigabyte).
The largest problem with tape has to do with accessing the right file, which is why it is seen as an archiving media above all. Transfer rates are unlikely to be a difficulty, with LTO-13 more likely to surpass 16Gbps, however that nonetheless means you have to no less than a day to fill one up, particularly if the tape size surpasses 1,000m.