UNITEX Corporation, the leader in the computer storage space for over 30 years, is pleased to announce today that its popular USB LTO tape drive will be available with LTO-9 technology in the spring of 2022. It features USB connectivity, a native storage capacity of 18 TB and compressed storage capacity at 2.5:1 of 45 TB, and a data transfer rate of up to 300 MB/second.

UNITEX Corporation has specialized in the computer storage space since it was founded in 1990. Over the years, UNITEX has developed various driver and application software, greatly increasing interoperability and making storage devices compatible across the entire spectrum of computer operating systems. This solid history and experiences make UNITEX an extremely reliable data storage solution provider.

FUJIFILM Recording Media U.S.A., Inc. is pleased to announce the launch and availability of its FUJIFILM LTO Ultrium 9 Data Cartridge (LTO-9). Fujifilm's LTO-9 complies with the ninth generation LTO Ultrium standards for magnetic tape storage media, marking a new standard of performance for backing up and archiving large volumes of data. Fujifilm's LTO-9 uses proprietary technology to offer up to 45 TB of storage capacity (18 TB for non-compressed data), a 50% increase from the previous generation of LTO tape.

Magnetic tape is increasingly recognized as an ideal storage media for long term archival of high-volume data, safely at low-cost. In addition, tape has a significantly lower environmental impact as there is no need to have it constantly powered-on during data storage, thereby reducing CO2 emissions generated during its lifecycle by 95% when compared to hard disk drives (HDDs).

Magnetic tape storage is one of the oldest technologies used for storing data. The technology was invented way back in 1928, and it is almost 100 years old. By today's standards, the technology is considered to be slow, however, it offers something that no modern HDD or SDD offers. Today, in collaboration with Fujifilm, IBM has developed a Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) magnetic layer for LTO-8 tapes that are capable of storing an amazing 580 TeraBytes of data in a single cartridge. The new technology will enable the modern world to store ever-increasing data sizes we are now counting in zettabytes. To store all of that data, one would need a high-capacity storage device to store all of the "cold data" that doesn't need real-time processing and has information of value.

That is exactly why IBM and Fujifilm have been developing the LTO-8 tape drives that are capable of 580 TB of capacity in a single cartridge. The technology can achieve that capacity thanks to the Strontium Ferrite (SrFe), which is capable of 317Gb/in2 recording density. With 1255 meters of the tape, IBM and Fujifilm have been able to achieve this density metric.

Fujifilm, a Japanese company focused on photography, imaging, printing, and biotechnology, predicts that it can build a 400 terabyte cartridge using Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) technology. Thanks to a report by Blocks&Files, who was press-briefed by Fujifilm, we have some information on the future of tape storage. Tape storage uses Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology, which is an open standard developed by IBM to ensure all tape-based storage devices use the same format, instead of proprietary magnetic formats. We are currently at the LTO-8 version of this technology, which was released in 2017. Currently, LTO-8 can hold 12 TB in a single cartridge.

Fujifilm, one of the remaining makers of tape storage, predicts that it can pack 400 TB of tape storage in the LTO-13 era. Starting from LTO-12, Fujifilm plans to deploy Strontium Ferrite (SrFe) technology, which is different from the current Barium Ferrite (BaFe). The problem with BaFe is that each new LTO generation uses smaller and smaller particles and that leads to some problems where a tape bit value can't be read, and magnetic polarities would be disturbed if particles get too small. 400 TB tape drives using LTO-13 should be in circulation around 2032/33 according to a Blocks&Files prediction. Below you can check out the table provided by Blocks&Files that shows LTO generations and their abilities.