Jan 07, 2021

RIP to the Oracle StorageTek T10K: Users Need to Find a New Storage Method Before March 15th, 2021

T10k tape sales cease March 15th, 2021
DLT, AIT, DAT, and SDLT have all met similar fates
LTO Drives are the strongest alternative to the now-defunct T10K
LTO 9 is expected to hold 18 TB of data native
LTO has remained steady and reliable since 2000

Magnetic tape has been around since the 1950s and has remained an ideal form of archiving for decades. Numerous iterations of magnetic tape have come and gone. Over the years, the tape industry has said goodbye to DLT, SDLT, AIT, DAT and is now preparing to bid farewell to T10000.

T10000 was developed in the early 2000s and has been a competitor of LTO tapes, which their drives beat in speed but fall short in terms of price and capacity. Recently, Oracle, the manufacturer of T10K, halted production on StorageTek tape drives. StorageTek tape drives are needed to read T10K tapes. Sales of T10k tapes will end on March 15th, 2021.

The end of T10K sales could easily be attributed to the high costs of both the tapes and corresponding drives. Regardless of the reason for its demise, users of StorageTek drives and T10K tapes will need to begin the process of migration to a more reliable storage option. LTO, a form of magnetic tape that debuted in the 1990s, stands to benefit from the end of T10k. With the help of the LTO Consortium, LTO has been the most reliable and consistent form of tape archiving since its inception. Even more appealing is the lower cost in comparison to competitors like T10k.

There is much to look forward to in the future of LTO tape. MagStor’s LTO 8 Thunderbolt™ 3 tape drive recently announced its compatibility with the new Apple Silicon chip. The LTO Consortium has projected that the LTO 9 tapes on the horizon will have a capacity of 18 terabytes.

Regardless of which method users use to switch their content storage to the time to start the process of data migration is now. If you and your team are using T10K tape, MagStor is happy to assist in making migration easier for you if you have an interest in LTO.