Market data
LTO shipments fell about 9% in 2025 to 160.3 exabytes, then rebounded with first-quarter 2026 capacity up 57% year over year, while media stayed at roughly $5 to $6 per terabyte as hard drive prices climbed.
Shipments
The LTO Program reports compressed capacity shipped each year. 2024 set a record at 176.5 EB. 2025 came in at 160.3 EB, about 9% lower, and the first quarter of 2026 shipped 57% more capacity than the same quarter a year earlier (LTO Program).
| Year | LTO capacity shipped | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 176.5 EB | Record |
| 2025 | 160.3 EB | Down about 9% |
| Q1 2026 | No total published | Up 57% year over year, from LTO-9 volume and the LTO-10 ramp |
Two readings of the 2025 dip circulate. One ties it to trade uncertainty making buyers cautious (The Register); the other suggests buyers were waiting for LTO-10 before committing to a new generation (Blocks & Files). The Q1 2026 rebound supports the second.
Supply
Every LTO cartridge on the market contains tape made by Fujifilm or Sony (The Register); HPE, IBM, Quantum and Dell put their names on media made by those two. That concentration is a risk when a plant or a material is disrupted, and it is also why tape pricing has not followed the hard drive market: DatacenterDisk reports tape holding at roughly $4 to $6 per TB through 2026 while hard drive prices rose sharply, because the tape supply chain sits outside the NAND shortage and hyperscale drive demand.
The 40 TB LTO-10 cartridge depends on an aramid base film, and its early price premium was blamed partly on tight supply of that film.
Prices
| Generation | Native capacity | Cartridge price | Per native TB |
|---|---|---|---|
| LTO-6 | 2.5 TB | $38.00 to $56.60 | $15.20 to $22.64 |
| LTO-7 | 6 TB | $62.75 to $79.99 | $10.46 to $13.33 |
| LTO-8 | 12 TB | $70.25 to $84.36 | $5.85 to $7.03 |
| LTO-9 | 18 TB | $92.45 to $129.00 | $5.14 to $7.17 |
| LTO-10 | 30 TB | $259.00 to $299.99 | $8.63 to $10.00 |
LTO-9 is the cheapest media per terabyte on sale. Legacy generations cost more per terabyte, not less: LTO-6 now runs $15.20 to $22.64 per TB against $5.14 to $7.17 for LTO-9. Full listings, drive prices and every earlier snapshot are on the price tracker and in the price history.
Generations
LTO-10 shipped in 2025 at 30 TB native, and a 40 TB cartridge for the same drives arrived in 2026. Two things make LTO-10 a bigger step than usual for buyers: the drives are full height only so far, and they do not read earlier generations at all, which breaks the backward-read rule every earlier generation followed. The published roadmap continues past LTO-10, but roadmap capacities have historically been targets rather than dates.
For anyone planning an archive today, that makes LTO-9 the conservative choice and LTO-10 the density choice. See LTO tape migration for what the compatibility change means for old tapes.
Demand
The demand that shows up in shipment figures comes from a few places: hyperscale and cloud providers keeping cold data off spinning disk, AI teams retaining training corpora and checkpoints they cannot afford to keep on flash, media and entertainment archives, and regulated industries with retention mandates. What these have in common is data that must exist for years and is read rarely, which is the one workload where tape's economics and its offline nature both count.
Pricebook
Request current LTO media and drive pricing before you budget a migration or a refresh.
Capacity shipped fell about 9% in 2025 to 160.3 EB after a record 176.5 EB in 2024, then rebounded with first-quarter 2026 shipments up 57% year over year. Measured in exabytes the market is growing over time, even though unit sales are concentrated in fewer, larger cartridges.
Only Fujifilm and Sony make the tape itself. HPE, IBM, Quantum and Dell sell cartridges containing media from those two manufacturers.
Tape media held at roughly $4 to $6 per TB while hard drive prices rose sharply, because tape production is not competing for the same supply chain as drives and flash. The trade-off is that tape needs a drive up front and gives sequential rather than random access.
30 TB native for the standard cartridge and 40 TB for the higher-capacity version introduced in 2026. Both work in the same LTO-10 drives, which do not read earlier generations.