Why Tape?

For the optimum balance between cost and performance, magnetic tape remains the clear first choice for backup today.

Having an effective data protection plan is a vital part of any business strategy today. However, with an ever-increasing number of data protection solutions available, customers are faced with the challenge of making the right choice to protect their data.

Proponents of disk based backup point to the advent of Serial ATA, falling disk prices and the rise in disk-to-disk based software to argue the demise of tape. Certainly service agreements for applications requiring 24x7 continuous fast access to data will demand high performance disk-based storage as this meets the need for fast, online access to data better than any other technology.

Tape still has a large part to play. It provides a superior technology for business continuity and archive applications due to a combination of transportability, low cost and archival shelf life

Easy to move offsite
Tape backup enables copies of large amounts of data to be stored on physically small, compact pieces of media which are easily transported offsite for secure storage and archival. Data held offline on tape is secure from the majority of threats, including virus and sabotage and issues caused by power failure. Data kept in offsite vaults can also largely be protected from fire, flood and other natural disasters.

Lower cost
Tape has been, and continues to be, less expensive than disk storage. Despite the low cost of today’s disk drives, tape is still a much cheaper storage medium in terms of cost per gigabyte.

Source: www.cdw.com April 2008

In addition to the lower media cost, tape drives also enjoy a lower energy cost as they require less power to run than a disk drive.

Shelf life
Magnetic tape has been in existence for fifty years and has proven its durability; tape is easily able to substantiate its fifteen to thirty year shelf-life specification and provides a reliable medium for data archival and compliance.

 

     Tape remains the most
     cost-effective backup
     solution available