The Case Against Tape

Tapes have major
disadvantages that disks no
longer do. With current disk
systems, you have
capabilities that tape just
can't match. Still hanging on to that 30% (Verified by 5 or 6
different failure rate studies)
failure rate out-of-the box
for your tapes? Disks have
only a 3-5% failure rate for
the first 3 years of constant use. And for the next 5 after
that it's still maxed out at
12%. At the same age, you're
lucky if you only have a 60%
failure rate on your tapes. Disk systems are now even
better than before, shock-
resistant casings that
withstand 12 foot drops on
concrete. RAID5 hot-swap
storage modules that give you redundancy that tapes
can't even dream of
accomplishing. Lightning
fast restore times. And when
your 5-year old tapes begin to
oxidize and lose data, your hermetically sealed Disks
(yes, every one already is)
will still be there ready to
spin up upon your request.
Besides, how many tapes
dedupe anyway? On a single 2 TB Disk I can keep a full
week's backups for the entire
city including all the
incrementals. Disk to Disk to Disk is the
current Enterprise backup
model. Even Iron Mountain
uses redundant disks at
multiple sites to save off it's
data and reserves tape only for it's 5th or 6th tier of
redundancy. Companies like Hi Rely and
others are steadily making
disk backup systems
competitively priced,
making tapes a thing of the
past. In my opinion, based on
years of experience and hard
data from the current studies
out there today, if you're not
using disk-based backups,
your throwing away your money. Before you scream price,
there are low-cost hot swap
solutions out there that will
do the job just as cheaply as
tape for small businesses too. What do I use? Disk-to-Disk-
to-Disk-to tape. Tape is still
there, but it's only a very last
resort. 4 different recovery
solutions have to fail before
I head for the tape closet. I find that fear of change has
a bigger factor in why people
refuse to let go of tape. A
false feeling that tape,
because it's been around
forever, should still be used even in the face
overwhelming evidence that
tape is significantly flawed
as a long-term storage
option. It still floors me that even
within the IT community,
there are still people who
believe that older technology
is more stable because it's
been around longer... By all means, go back to your old
286 Desktop and have at it. I
think Pong or space invaders
might work on it. And while
you're at it, color flat screens
are so overrated, go back to your 4-foot square green
screens and see how
AutoCAD handles it. If you want to live in the
dark ages and live in
constant fear of losing it all,
hold on to your tapes with
every nostalgic bone in your
body. The rest of us will rest easy knowing our data is
truly safe and secure. Article Source: http:// EzineArticles.com/?
expert=Bob_Duker