Traditionally, people only had the option of using floppy disks as their portable data storage devices. However, with a huge surge in demand for electronic data storage in the past decade, the users have many more options to choose from.
Tape drives have been one such option that not only allows the users to store and back up large amounts of data but also to carry around their data with them wherever they go. Tapes have long been termed as the preferred data backup media and they continue to rule the data backup market even today.
Why Do Companies Prefer to Use Tape Drives for Backing up Data?
Companies prefer to use tape drives over other backup media because tapes offer various benefits to its users. It is very easy to copy the required data from a hard disk to a tape drive. As many people are not very comfortable about using advanced data backup media, tapes prove to be a good alternative. Since tapes have been around for a very long time, employees are comfortable using tapes.
Recent studies have proved that the most common reason for data loss incidents is human error. When people do not back up their data on a regular basis, the risk of complete data loss rises significantly. It is common for people to not back up their data on a regular basis when they are not comfortable with the data backup technology.
As tapes are easy to use and do not require a technological expertise, employees feel much more comfortable with using tapes and consequently backing up their data regularly. Tapes are ideal for archival purposes. Many companies need to archive large amounts of data for audit or compliance purposes. Using any other data storage media for archival purposes can prove to be very expensive option for the company.
Tapes have the storage capacity to create a backup of the entire computer system. Therefore, tape drives come in handy in an emergency situation wherein an entire system backup may be required. Disaster planning and data management are on the priority list of all the companies.
Creating remote data backups is an integral part of this planning. Backing up data on tapes allows the companies to create an effective remote data backup strategy as it is very easy to transport the tapes to a remote destination after the data has been backed up on them.
Advantages of Using Tape Drives
• Tapes are a cost-effective data backup option. The cost per MB of data storage offered by tape media is far less than other data storage devices.
• Tapes are not only convenient to use but also provide flexibility to the users. Different tape formats suit different business requirements. Therefore, if you want to back up data ranging between 20 GB to 800 GB, your company can opt for the VXA format. However, if your data backup needs range between 200 GB to 2000 GB, your company should opt for Ultrium or LTO format. As the price of the different formats will vary according to the data storage capacity, the business can plan its expenses as per the data storage requirements.
• The expected shelf life of a tape is supposed to be 20 years if stored and handled appropriately. Therefore, they are ideal for archiving data over a long period of time.
• These days, tapes come with automated software that backs up the data as per the preset schedule. Therefore, if you are worried about your employees not creating regular data backups, all you have to do is set an automated schedule and the data will get backed up automatically. This also helps the company cut costs, as no IT resources have to be dedicated to this task any longer.
• Using a tape autoloader helps the companies to eliminate manual operations to a large extent. This autoloader eliminates the need to manually insert and remove tapes during and after the data backup process. Therefore, companies can actually reduce their data backup costs significantly by reducing manual labour.
Disadvantages of Using Tape Drives
• A company has to ensure that it adopts an appropriate tape rotation strategy to preserve the integrity of the tapes.
• Tapes are very fragile and if they are not handled or stored appropriately, they can lose data very easily.
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