The Ultrium Linear Tape Open (LTO) specification, by far the most widely used tape spec in the industry, has a road map that takes tape out to 32TB per cartridge and up to 1.2GB/sec. throughput. “We’ve done a public demonstration of 29.5Gbits of data in a square inch of tape,” said Brian Truskowski, IBM’s general manager of system storage and networking. “We see a lot of headroom in terms of areal density.”

via As 60th anniversary nears, tape reinvents itself – Computerworld.