Articles

RSS

Download the complete white paper now.

Tape historically is the most used medium for backup and recovery of data stored on servers, disk arrays and workstations. Information Technology managers have used tape for archival purposes and have for years attempted to implement Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) systems using this uncooperative medium. Since tape is used for such a variety of storage functions, in organizations of all sizes, it has almost become a "fixture" in today's networks.

What is it about tape that has made it such a widespread storage medium? It isn't tape's performance, availability, accessibility, scalability or reliability. Despite continued advances in data transfer speeds, disk buffers, robotics, storage capacity and other features, when it comes to storing and accessing data, tape still does not compare to the speed and efficiencies of hard disks.

While IT managers feel "comfortable" with tape, the two primary reasons it has been utilized are cost and portability. For years, it has been the least expensive storage medium, offering dramatic cost savings compared to hard disk and optical disk storage. This difference in cost between tape and disk-based systems has until recently been a barrier to wider adaptation of hard disk storage replacing tape-based applications.

Download the complete white paper now.