Tape still isn’t dead, but shipments slipped by 16 exabytes in 2025
LTO program is confident this is a glitch, not terminal unspooling
Tape is still not dead, but it’s not in rude health either after shipments slipped by 16 exabytes in 2025.
That number comes from the LTO Program – the alliance of HPE, IBM, and Quantum Corp, that together tends the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Format that accounts for around 85 percent of all tape sales. The Program delivers an annual data dump describing the previous year’s shipments, and this year’s effort landed on Tuesday with news that 160.3 exabytes worth of LTO tape went out the door during 2025, nine percent down from 2024’s 176.5 exabytes.
The LTO Program pointed out that 2024 represented an all-time high, and that 2025’s shipments are the second-highest result for the format.
The trio quoted storage analyst Tom Coughlin as saying the reason for the 16 exabyte slip was “the evolving international trade environment”...
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