From theregister.com
The Linear Tape-Open (LTO) organisation has signed off on efforts by Fujifilm and Sony to create tapes that conform with the LTO-9 standard – meaning that new-generation tapes with 45 terabytes of capacity are now on sale.
Fujifilm bolted out of the gates with an announcement to the effect that it sells media that support LTO-9’s spec of 18TB native capacity, or 45TB after data is compressed.
Previous generations of LTO have improved capacity by 100 per cent compared to their predecessors. LTO-9 instead adds fifty per cent capacity compared to 2017’s LTO-8. The companies behind LTO – HPE, IBM, and Quantum – never quite explained why the jump was smaller this time around.
They did suggest that LTO-9 would meet a new need for tape – an air-gapped archive that’s untouchable by ransomware.