| Tape-backup systems vs. disk-backup systems |
| June 1st, 2005 |
With the increasing popularity of disk-based backup systems, I am often asked why we shouldn’t do away with tape based backup systems and replace them with faster and more reliable disk based backup systems. Tapes can be a pain to manage, store, and keep track of failed and passed jobs.
There are still many advantages to using tapes instead of backing up to disk. A tape can easily be stored off site, in multiple locations, or in a fireproof safe. If one goes bad, there are other tapes to fall back on. The storage price per gigabyte is much cheaper than a disk-based system.
Our average our client has 10 tapes that they rotate; each tape holding about 200 Gigabytes. For a comparable disk-based system, you would need to purchased 2,000 Gigabytes (2 Terabytes) of disk storage and a dedicated backup server to handle such a volume of data. After all this, you’d still have a single point of failure. A water leak, fire, or theft in your server room could render your entire backup strategy useless.
We recommend all of our clients have, at the very least, 5 tapes that are changed daily, and to always keep a tape offsite in a safe location. We provide a host of other disaster recovery services and solutions depending on your recovery needs.
By: Jeffrey Pena Senior Network Engineer Capitol Computer Exchange |