LTO 9 Tape

LTO Ultrium 9 Tapes are scheduled to be released in late 2020.  LTO 9 specifications support tape cartridge of up to 18TB uncompressed and up to 45TB* compressed.

LTO 9 Tapes will include read-and-write backwards compatibility with LTO 8 tapes. LTO Ultrium 9 tapes will support LTFS, WORM (Write Once, Read Many) functionality and data encryption.

Once released, TapeandMedia.com will stock LTO 9 tapes by HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise), IBM, Quantum and Fujifilm.

The Future Plans for LTO Tapes 
LTO (Linear Tape-Open) is an open tape format developed and amended by LTO Consortium members Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), IBM and Quantum.

LTO 9 Tapes are scheduled to be releases in late 2020 (or early 2021).  LTO technology is currently in its 8th generation (LTO Ultrium 8). LTO-8 tape cartridges have a compressed capacity of up to 30 TB* and data transfer rates up to 750MB* per second (up to for over 2.7 terabytes hour). New generations of LTO regularly introduced since 2000 with higher capacity and transfer rates along with new features to further protect your data and content. Through LTO 7, specifications for backward compatibility is to write back one generation and read back two generations. LTO 8 drives can read and write LTO-7 and LTO-8 media. You can count on your investment in LTO being good for the long run.

 *Assuming a 2.5:1 compression achieved with larger compression history buffer available beginning with LTO generation 6 drives.