LTO Roadmap Extends to 365 TB per Cartridge as Tape Storage Refuses to Die
Tom's Hardware, Thursday, October 22nd, 2026
The LTO Program now envisions 365TB LTO-14 cartridges, and the 40TB LTO-10 tape adds capacity by using longer, thinner tape.
HPE, IBM and Quantum, the companies behind LTO, now project LTO-14 cartridges with 365TB of native capacity, up from 40TB for the current extended LTO-10 media.
Capacity has grown 400-fold since LTO-1's 100GB in 2000 without changing the form factor, though the consortium has deliberately slowed the roadmap to prioritize reliability, cost per terabyte and manageable backup and restore times.
LTO-10 uses 15,104 data tracks, up 68.5% from LTO-9, and the 40TB cartridge uses a thinner Aramid base film to fit about 1,335 meters of tape.
LTO-10 dropped backward compatibility.