> LTO-10 30TB: $259–$300 per cartridge (~$8.63–$10/TB) LTO-10 40TB: $491–$555 per cartridge (~$12.28–$13.88/TB) LTO-9 18TB: $92–$129 per cartridge (~$5.14–$7.17/TB)

Just a note: do NOT buy LTO-10 right now. The capacity increase is not worth the price bump, and the drives are still very new. There are still no half-height drives for tape libraries available, for example.

> One thing worth noting is that the tape cartridges themselves aren't necessarily the biggest expense. Standalone LTO-10 drives are currently listed at around $25,000.

The drives are a fairly fixed CapEx: once they're purchased they don't cost must/anything to run. You may replace them every few years with newer tech for higher capacities of course.

Libraries/robotics last even longer, and can stick around for a decade or more once purchased.

What makes the drives so expensive? Is it just the fact that they're still pretty niche?

You don't need a $25,000 LTO-10 drive, $100,000 library, and $300 tapes. The drives are frequently backwards compatible multiple generations, so your archives are safe. You can get LTO-7, LTO-8, and LTO-9 libraries for cheap (right now there are lots of LTO-7 standalone drives for under $1000 on ebay), as they've aged out of enterprise leases.

Yes, drives are very expensive and that's why there is a business for renting them. Even Amazon Snowball offered that [1]. There are other rental services such as [2] but many of them are not LTO-10 yet (don't know if it really matters right now).

[1] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/snowball/latest/developer-guide/...

[2] https://mediastoragegroup.com/