Different Needs for Different Environments
Tape is not dead, or even close to it but it not the first
choice in every environment. For a small one office shop
of 7 users and no full time IT, Use a DVD or a set of
portable drives or flash drives if you want or just put a
DAT drive in the server with one-button IDR and have an
assigned tape changer. Have the logs sent to the
consultant. Larger shops, the industry has migrated to a
D2D2T system in many areas as NAS or SAN gives faster
windows for both backup and restore but then there is the
offsite issue. DVDs are more fragile than tape when
exposed to lots of moving, and at 4.7 GB they are useless
if you have a good amount of data. LTO 3 at 400/800 GB
per tape provides huge capacity, portability, and cost
effectivness. Yes the drive is expensive but depending on
compresion ratio that is .15 - .075 per GB. LTO 4 at
800/1.6 TB per tape is about the same. With real world
jobs running at 500 MB/min that is not too bad.
Bottom line is how much data the center has and what will
allow onsite, offsite, and even possibly 3rd party disaster
recovery storage.
Online storage is great in some situations but are you
going to take that 3 LTO3 tape backup and try to transfer
it online? I doubt it but again it is like so many things in
our business. It is grey, not black & white. Tape?
Sometimes.
