Tape storage is easy to dismiss as an artifact of an earlier computing era, but the latest shipment figures tell a very different story. The Linear Tape-Open Program said tape capacity shipments reached 160.3 exabytes of compressed capacity in 2025. Although that result was 9% lower than the 176.5 exabytes shipped in 2024, it was still the second-largest year for tape shipments on record. More significantly, tape capacity shipments surged 57% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, a signal that enterprises are turning to tape to solve a modern problem: the flood of AI-generated data.
AI systems do not simply process data; they also create enormous volumes of it. Training datasets, model checkpoints, experimental outputs, retrieval indexes, research data, and inference logs all contribute to storage growth. Once an AI model is trained, the data used to train it often must be kept for auditing, compliance, or future retraining. When foundation models are updated, older versions may still need to be retained. The result is an accumulation of data that places severe pressure on data center budgets and backup systems.
Why AI is making tape relevant again
The organizations behind the Linear Tape-Open standard include Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, and Quantum. They describe the current resurgence as the product of several converging forces: AI data growth, rising energy costs, and a heightened focus on cyber resilience. Tape, they argue, is no longer a simple archival afterthought. It has become a strategic part of the storage stack because it can store very large amounts of data at a predictable cost and protect it from attacks that target always-on systems.
Quantum Chief Executive Officer Hugues Meyrath summarized the shift in a statement tied to the new shipment figures. He said: "We are seeing unprecedented data growth combined with increasing cost, energy, and cyber resilience pressures across the industry. As organizations adapt to this new reality, tape is increasingly viewed as a strategic component of modern data infrastructure, delivering predictable economics and resilient long-term data retention at scale."
That statement reflects a real technical and economic change. For decades, tape was primarily used by large enterprises, broadcasters, research institutions, and government agencies that needed to keep petabytes of data beyond the life of active storage systems. Today, the same need has expanded to nearly every organization operating AI workloads. Even companies that rent cloud infrastructure rather than building their own data centers are feeling the cost of keeping massive data volumes online or in hot storage. Tape provides an alternative that is denser and cheaper than spinning hard drives for data that is not accessed constantly.
Hard drives have limits for AI-scale backups
The traditional workhorse for backup remains the mechanical hard drive. Hard drives provide far more capacity and lower cost per terabyte than solid-state drives, which is why they remain common in backup appliances. But AI-era datasets have begun to outgrow hard-drive-based backup environments. Backup windows shrink as data grows, and disk-based systems require constant power, cooling, floor space, and management.
A single compressed tape cartridge used in LTO systems can hold anywhere from 30 terabytes to 250 terabytes of data, depending on the generation. A tape library is considerably more expansive. Inside a large library, a carousel can hold dozens or even hundreds of tape cartridges, with a robotic arm loading and unloading cartridges as needed. That means an operator can assemble a multi-petabyte archive in a footprint far smaller than an equivalent rack of hard drives.
Tape is not a replacement for high-performance storage. It is not designed for low-latency access or for applications that need frequent random reads. Instead, it fits a specific but growing role: long-term retention of data that must be kept for business, legal, scientific, or AI lifecycle reasons. Data that was created weeks ago but still must be preserved is often better suited to tape than to always-on disk.
Low power consumption and lower total cost
One of tape’s biggest advantages is that the media does not require electricity while it is sitting in storage. Hard-drive-based backup systems must remain powered so the disks can spin and the array can accept new data or respond to recovery requests. Tape cartridges simply rest in slots on a shelf. Power consumption is therefore far lower than for a hard-drive backup environment holding the same amount of data.
This difference has become more important as data center operators face growing pressure to reduce energy use and carbon emissions. An archive that rarely needs to be accessed does not justify the energy draw of dozens of powered disk shelves. Tape allows organizations to keep the data without keeping all of it spinning. For utilities, facilities teams, and sustainability officers, that offline behavior is one of the strongest arguments for tape.
Total cost of ownership also favors tape in many scenarios. The initial investment in a tape library and robotic automation can be significant, but the media itself is inexpensive relative to high-capacity disks. When the data is cold, the recurring costs are minimal. Tape has no need for continuous cooling of the media, although the library room itself may still require reasonable environmental controls. Over a typical retention period, the savings can be considerable.
A physical air gap that stops ransomware
Security is another reason why tape has regained attention. Many organizations have been hit by ransomware attacks that encrypt both primary storage and online backups. If a backup system is connected to the network, an attacker who has gained privileged access can disable, delete, or encrypt the backup copies. Tape offers a defense that is difficult to overcome: an air gap.
When a tape is not in a drive, it is physically disconnected from the network. The cartridge sits in a storage unit and cannot be reached through a remote command. A hacker cannot change data that has no connection to a network or to a drive. This offline protection is one reason why tape remains a preferred medium for legal hold, regulatory compliance, and disaster recovery copies.
Tape can also be paired with WORM functionality, or write once, read many, which prevents the data on a cartridge from being altered or overwritten. Together, the air gap and immutability give organizations an additional layer of insurance at a time when cyber attacks are increasingly targeting backup infrastructure.
Long history and a changing roadmap
Tape has a long history in enterprise computing, but the modern LTO format was developed to bring standardized, high-capacity cartridges to a broad market. The technology has gone through multiple generations, and the LTO consortium continues to map out future generations with higher capacities. Backward compatibility has been a key feature of LTO systems, allowing organizations to read data from older cartridges while moving to newer hardware. That longevity matters in archives that are expected to remain readable for decades.
Skeptics have predicted the death of tape for years. Yet tape has kept its niche because storage needs keep growing. AI development has intensified that trend. Large language models, computer vision systems, and autonomous agents need massive data collections, and those collections need backup and retention strategies. Tape’s capacity is now measured in exabytes across the industry, and the latest shipment data shows that tape remains one of the few storage technologies able to absorb the data wave without demanding a corresponding surge in power and cost.
The fact that shipments declined slightly in 2025 after an exceptionally strong 2024 should not obscure the longer trend. Purchase cycles for tape libraries can be lumpy, and large deals may vary from year to year. The sharp increase in the first quarter of 2026 is a more recent indicator of direction. It suggests that data center operators are adding tape capacity as part of new AI infrastructure projects and refreshing older tape estates after years of restrained investment.
As AI applications expand, data management choices will become an even more important part of the cost equation. Tape does not make sense for every workload, but it is well suited to the enormous volumes of data that AI systems generate and retain. Its low operating cost, high density, and offline protection align with the needs of organizations that must keep data for long periods without inflating their energy bills. The latest shipment figures are evidence that after years of being pushed aside, tape has become a central tool in the effort to keep the AI data boom under control.
Source: Network World News