Despite what many say, tapes are far from dead. In fact past few years we have seen the tapes converge to 2 Major Formats - LTO and 3592 media. Vendors ( LTO consortium for LTO and IBM/Fuji for 3592) have been investing in both the formats and they remain the choice of media for the last tier of storage.
The Latest Generation of LTO tape media - LTO-8 offers Native capacity of 12TB ( 30TB on typical data compression). Further, you can format a previously unused LTO-7 tape media as LTO-8 Type M and get 9TB Native Capacity. This makes the new LTO-8 extremely compelling for an upgrade - it offers cheapest Cost per TB. Even though the cost of the LTO-8 media is fairly high ( and will probably fall as with most of the new techs), the LTO-7 media itself has a stable pricing. When you upgrade, you can make use of LTO-7 pricing and have a media that gives you 9 native Terabytes for the lowest cost per TB.
Here is a comparison of Cost per TB for currently running LTO media. We have not included LTO-1,2 and 3 in the comparison as they have completely phased out and the supplies have become scarce too.
The Latest Generation of LTO tape media - LTO-8 offers Native capacity of 12TB ( 30TB on typical data compression). Further, you can format a previously unused LTO-7 tape media as LTO-8 Type M and get 9TB Native Capacity. This makes the new LTO-8 extremely compelling for an upgrade - it offers cheapest Cost per TB. Even though the cost of the LTO-8 media is fairly high ( and will probably fall as with most of the new techs), the LTO-7 media itself has a stable pricing. When you upgrade, you can make use of LTO-7 pricing and have a media that gives you 9 native Terabytes for the lowest cost per TB.
Here is a comparison of Cost per TB for currently running LTO media. We have not included LTO-1,2 and 3 in the comparison as they have completely phased out and the supplies have become scarce too.
| Media | Native Capacity (TB) | Retail Price- AED | Cost Per TB - AED | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LTO-3 | 0.4 | 110 | 275.00 | |
| LTO-4 | 0.8 | 85 | 106.25 | |
| LTO-5 | 1.5 | 85 | 56.67 | |
| LTO-6 | 2.5 | 90 | 36.00 | Cheapest Cost Per TB, but Takes more tapes to save same amount of Data. Will be obsolete soon. |
| LTO-7 | 6 | 325 | 54.17 | |
| LTO-8 Type M | 9 | 325 | 36.11 | Cheapest Cost Per TB |
| LTO-8 | 12 | 700 | 58.33 | Almost Same as LTO-7, will surely fall . |
- LTO-8 Type M offers the lowest cost per TB, 50% lower than LTO-7. ( offcourse you have 50% more capacity but same price)
- LTO-8 would soon become the lowest Cost per TB as the prices fall. Currently LTO-8 offers same cost per TB as LTO-7.
- Upgrade now, use LTO-7 media as LTO-8 type M. Start using LTO-8 whenever the prices of Media match your Cost per TB expectation.
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