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LTO Tape Digitisation & Cloud Migration

Your tapes will outlive the drives that read them. We get your content off while it's still easy.

Media Minds is a UK media archive specialist that migrates content off LTO tape every generation, from LTO-1 to LTO-9, into cloud or hybrid storage.

 

Every file is checksum-verified, directory structures and metadata are preserved, and we work at petabyte scale across hundreds of tapes at a time. Transparent per-tape rates, direct billing, no middleman markup.

Server Room Technician

The drive-availability problem

LTO tapes last decades; the drives that read them don't. Each LTO generation reads back at most two generations, and working drives for older formats are disappearing from the market. If your archive sits on LTO-4 or earlier, the constraint isn't tape decay — it's whether anyone will still have hardware to read it in five years. Migration is time-sensitive in a way most storage decisions aren't.

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What we do

We read every tape on maintained drives spanning all LTO generations, verify every file against checksums as it comes off, and deliver your content wherever it needs to live: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Backblaze, hybrid, or new media. Original folder structures, file names, and metadata are preserved throughout. You hold the destination accounts; nothing is ever locked to us. 

And if the right destination is fresh tape, that's our LTO Backup & Archiving service.

  • All LTO generations, LTO-1 through LTO-9 (LTFS, TAR, and backup-application formats)

    Non-destructive and read-only, your originals are never touched

  • Checksum verification on every file, with a full verification report

  • Directory structure, naming, and metadata preserved

  • Bandwidth-optimised upload direct to your cloud accounts

  • Volume handling at petabyte scale

What you get

Video Editing Timeline

1

Storage Migrated

Your content, verified and usable, in the storage you choose  

2

Discoverability 

A manifest of everything on each tape: files, formats, durations, and sizes.

3

Certainty 

You end the project knowing exactly what came off the shelf, not just holding a bigger cloud bill

Every migration lands with a map

Commodity transfer houses move bytes. Because we're a media archive consultancy, every tape we ingest can be catalogued by our Catalogue Intelligence toolkit, so you finish the migration knowing what you own, what's duplicated, and what never needed migrating at all. Most clients save more on storage than on migration costs.

Frequently asked questions

LTO Quote Request

Roughly how many tapes?
What generation(s)? Required
Where should the content end up? Required

Thanks, we'll come back with a per-tape quote within the week. If anything needs clarifying first, we'll email you.

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