In late December, the Tape Storage Council issued a memo on current and upcoming trends within the tape storage industry, including the release of new tape formats. The Council includes representatives from several significant storage and technology companies, including Iron Mountain.
The TSC's assessment notes that backup tape is the most secure, reliable and cost effective backup method available on the market according to current storage trends. This is helpful for companies required to store terabytes of data for several years for regulation and compliance reasons.
Continued Tape Technology Investment
One of the key factors driving tape innovation is exponential data growth. It's increasingly expensive to keep new data and older data on spinning disk or in the Cloud. The recently released LTO-7 tape format can hold up to 6 TBs of data, making it possible for some companies to back up their entire dataset to a single tape. This is helpful when a company is making a technology shift, such as moving to the Cloud. In this case, existing data can be stored on tape until its needed, fewer tapes are required to be managed, or the tape can be used to seed data into the cloud.
Tape storage also continues to be extremely durable, with a possible lifespan of up to 30 years. This makes it a cost effective way to store data that needs to be kept for at least 7 to 10 years. It also gives companies peace of mind that their data will not become corrupted.
The TSC is also keeping an eye on Active Archive solutions that offer a hybrid approach to storage tape, disk and cloud data. With an Active Archive, companies can add to their storage tier whatever solution they want to. For example, new and nearline data goes to the Cloud or spinning disk, and archive data sits on tape. This approach helps to keep storage costs down while still maintaining access Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
Another emerging trend is the Tape as NAS (Network Attached Storage) solution. This solution integrates with an LTO library and provides direct file access to tape data on a NAS with either CIFS/NFS mounts. Data is written to NAS until the cache is full, and the NAS writes the data to tape; however, a user can still see all the data as if it were on a file system and retrieve it easily based on pre-set SLAs. This saves effort in trying to locate tapes in inventory offsite and then sort the data.
Tape is Backing Up the Cloud
The Cloud moves IT infrastructure from your company to your cloud provider and whether you realize it or not, that provider is probably using tape as a secondary backup method.
Your organization probably creates data in the Cloud, but as that data ages, it makes economic sense for your cloud provider to move inactive data to tape and make it available to you when you need it. Your active data is likely on spinning disk, so it can be accessed quickly in a disaster recovery situation.
Tape is also an effective way to seed data to the Cloud, especially large data sets, especially when you consider the time it would take to push terabytes of data over a WAN.
With all this in mind, Iron Mountain has several solutions to help you manage your data.
Offsite Tape Vaulting - We've been protecting our clients' tapes for years and will continue to do so. Rely on our climate controlled vaults to protect your tapes for as many years as your retention policies require.
Restoration Services - If you're transitioning from tape to a disk or cloud solution, let Iron Mountain keep your legacy backup tapes in storage and create a restoration program for you to retrieve archive data when you need it most.
Cloud Services - Our cloud services can help you backup your systems to the cloud or a disk solution as well as maintain business continuity during planned and unplanned service disruptions.
For more information about how tape has evolved over the years, download our infographic: The History of Tape.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
In late December, the Tape Storage Council issued a memo on current and upcoming trends within the tape storage industry, including the release of new tape formats. The Council includes representatives from several significant storage and technology companies, including Iron Mountain.
