The LTO Show Take
For archive and backup teams already running LTO infrastructure, $5-per-terabyte media costs are a known reality — but MakeUseOf's mainstream take is a useful signal that tape's economics are finally getting outside-the-rack coverage. The "why you can't buy it" framing lands on the real gating factor: drive acquisition cost. Amortize a $2,000–$4,000+ LTO-9 drive over a five-year media lifespan across multiple petabytes of data and the per-terabyte math improves considerably — which is exactly the analysis backup architects and archive operators should be running right now.
The Story
MakeUseOf published an explainer on LTO tape's approximately $5-per-terabyte media cost, spotlighting LTO-9 cartridges that deliver up to 18 TB native capacity at commodity cartridge prices, while noting that LTO drive hardware — ranging from roughly $2,000 to $4,000 or more for a standalone unit — creates a steep entry barrier for smaller-scale users. The piece positions tape as the most cost-efficient storage medium per gigabyte available today but underscores that its economics only pencil out at scale, making it the domain of enterprises, media archives, hyperscalers, cloud cold-tier operators, and research institutions able to amortize hardware across petabytes. Read the full article: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMilwFBVV95cUxQSzdwT3lqLTVmYU5NcDM5SXZIWFkzM0JCLWx1TWI2S0RlUVROYUg3bVpHbGQtdXRhTmtiV00zckNSZXVEVHY4dUNWTzZqTXAxWG1jMURsZWlHb3lobm1pbkozQWx3czVKS25rZjVQQnlhWHJYU3VvemM2VFdKaEtxdnNLUWRhSGU0Q1pfZG0zX0FVRV9kbmhj?oc=5
Source: MakeUseOf
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— The LTO Show Editorial Staff