- Fujifilm’s 40TB tape expands archiving capacity without forcing businesses to redesign infrastructure
- Offline Storage Remains Relevant as Ransomware Pressure Reshapes Enterprise Data Protection Strategies
- Tape continues to gain traction where long-term retention costs dominate technical decisions
Following the initial announcement of a new generation of LTO Ultrium cartridges offering 40TB of native capacity, Fujifilm has released this magnetic tape.
The Fujifilm LTO Ultrium 10 40TB data cartridge is aimed at businesses facing increasing ransomware incidents and increasing regulatory pressure.
It is also designed for organizations managing growing volumes of file 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 through compression, extending beyond the previous 30TB version released in mid-2025.
This cartridge supports a maximum transfer rate of 400 MB/sec native and up to 1000 MB/sec compressed, and includes internal EEPROM cartridge memory with a 32 kB electromagnetic induction antenna.
The tape measures 12.65 mm wide, 4.0 μm thick and 1337 m long.
Fujifilm attributes the capacity increase to refined magnetic particle engineering and a thinner base film construction, allowing for greater 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 the recommended temperature and humidity ranges.
Support for operating temperatures between 15°C and 35°C and humidity levels up to 80% within a range of 15°C to 25°C addresses deployment in regions where climate control may be inconsistent.
This change targets broader use beyond strictly managed data centers, including secondary facilities and regional archives.
Fujifilm emphasizes durability and stable read and write performance, although real-world reliability under sustained stress conditions still depends on deployment discipline.
The film continues to compete primarily on long-term profitability rather than raw performance.
While SSD platforms dominate active workloads due to 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-tier storage architectures.
Despite repeated claims that physical media is obsolete, magnetic tape continues to play a definite role in enterprise storage strategies.
Its appeal lies primarily in offline data isolation, limiting exposure to network-based attacks.
As ransomware and other cyber attacks continue to put pressure on businesses, magnetic tape remains a viable option due to its consistent read and write behavior over long periods.
Unlike cloud storage platforms that can be permanently accessed via 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 statements from figures such as Elon Musk, who has argued that physical storage media represents an outdated limitation in a software-centric future.
Corporate purchasing behavior suggests a more cautious interpretation of those claims.
The Fujifilm LTO Ultrium 10 40TB data cartridge will be available from 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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