LTO vs. Cloud Storage — Cost Calculator

The real cost of long-term media archiving, side by side.

30-year shelf life

LTO-9 is rated for 30 years; no migration treadmill.

Air-gapped

Offline tape can't be reached by ransomware or a bad API key.

No vendor lock-in

You own the media outright — no account, no hostage data.

One-time cost

Pay once to archive. No monthly rent that compounds for years.

No egress surprise

Restores are known labor — not a metered per-TB cloud bill.

Your scenario

Data volume100 TB

TB total

Retention3 yr

How long material is kept before (or between) restores.

Full restores1×

Cloud egress is billed on every retrieval; LTO restore is labor only.

Tape capacity (TB)

Tape cost ($)

Labor rate ($/hr)

Archive hrs / TB

Restore hrs / TB

LTO vault $/TB/mo

Cloud rates are derived from a 100 TB / 3 yr benchmark and scale linearly.

LTO-9 · Mosaic

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Best cloud alt.

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You save with LTO

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Cloud "rent" / mo

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Option	Archive	Storage	Retrieval	Total	$/TB/yr

Total cost by option

Cumulative cost over timeif fully restored in year N