- Fujifilm’s 40TB tape expands archival capacity without forcing enterprises to redesign infrastructure
- Offline storage remains relevant as ransomware pressure reshapes enterprise data protection strategies
- Tape continues gaining ground where long-term retention costs dominate technical decisions
After the initial announcement of a new generation of LTO Ultrium cartridges offering 40TB of native capacity, Fujifilm has now launched this magnetic tape.
The Fujifilm 40TB LTO Ultrium 10 data cartridge targets enterprises facing rising ransomware incidents and increasing regulatory pressure.
It is also designed for organizations managing growing volumes of archival data produced by analytics and machine learning workloads.
Fujifilm 40TB LTO-10 cartridge
The new cartridge increases native capacity to 40TB and up to 100TB using compression, extending beyond the earlier 30TB version released in mid-2025.
This cartridge supports a maximum transfer rate of 400MB/sec native and up to 1000MB/sec compressed, and includes internal EEPROM cartridge memory with a 32kB electromagnetic induction antenna.
The tape measures 12.65mm in width, 4.0μm in thickness, and 1,337m in length.
Fujifilm attributes the capacity increase to refined magnetic particle engineering and thinner base film construction, which allows more tape length within the same cartridge dimensions.
The cartridge remains compatible with existing LTO-10 drives, limiting additional infrastructure investment for current users.
One update is the expansion of recommended temperature and humidity ranges.
Support for operating temperatures between 15°C and 35°C, and humidity levels up to 80% within a 15°C to 25°C range, addresses deployment in regions where climate control may be inconsistent.
This change points to broader use beyond tightly managed data centers, including secondary facilities and regional archives.
Fujifilm emphasizes durability and stable read write performance, although real-world reliability under sustained stress conditions still depends on deployment discipline.
Tape continues to compete primarily on long-term cost efficiency rather than raw performance.
While SSD platforms dominate active workloads because of latency advantages, their economics become less favorable at extreme retention scales.
Tape is often deployed alongside disk-based systems rather than replacing them, serving as a lower-cost archival tier within multi-layer storage architectures.
Despite repeated claims that physical media is obsolete, magnetic tape continues to play a defined role in enterprise storage strategies.
Its appeal lies mainly in offline data isolation, which limits exposure to network-based attacks.
As ransomware and other cyberattacks continue to pressure enterprises, magnetic tape remains a viable option because of consistent read write behavior over long periods.
Unlike cloud storage platforms that remain permanently reachable through network interfaces, tape cartridges can be physically removed from active systems.
This isolation model remains attractive for backup, compliance archiving, and disaster recovery scenarios where recovery integrity matters more than access speed.
Industry shipment figures show continued growth in LTO adoption, driven largely by AI data retention requirements and compliance mandates.
This trend contrasts with frequent public assertions from figures such as Elon Musk, who has argued that physical storage media represents an outdated constraint in a software-centric future.
Enterprise purchasing behavior suggests a more cautious interpretation of those claims.
The Fujifilm LTO Ultrium 10 40TB data cartridge will be available starting January 2026, although pricing has not been announced.
It will ship in three configurations: LTO FB UL-10 40.0T with 5 cartridges x 4, LTO FB UL-10 40.0T LP20 with 20 cartridges x 1, and LTO FB UL-10 40.0T ECO with 20 cartridges x 1.
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