If you thought the downright ancient computer storage system of magnetic tape was a relic of the 1950s mainframe era, that’s actually not quite right.
Fair point, and a useful correction to a common assumption. Magnetic tape is far from a 1950s relic: it is still the cheapest way to keep large volumes of cold data, and the LTO format (first released in 2000) is still being revised. The current generation is LTO-10, and a tape can be stored offline, which is part of why it's being pulled back into talk about AI data.
To be precise about what's shown and what's suggested: the cost and offline-protection advantages are well established in industry practice and in the vendor's own pitch, but I haven't checked independent cost-per-terabyte studies for this post, so treat the cost comparison as the vendor's and analysts' view rather than a measured result. If you want the strongest evidence on the other side, look at the LTO Consortium's published roadmaps and the shipment figures from the industry trade groups, which show the 2025 dip I mentioned above.
