Tape Backup: Is it Obsolete?

Tape data backup and recovery is today becoming an
obsolete technology as newer
and better solutions are
replacing the traditional tape backup systems. Tape
backup is usually used by larger corporations such as banks and
financial firms that depend on the resilience of tape backup and
tape backup tools. Tape backups are much more dependable than
normal backups as data is written on a physical tape (floppy or
cassette) that can be stored and later retrieved when needed.
There are, however, disadvantages of tape and these include: it can be very time consuming to
make a backup and to retrieve the data, it is monetary expensive
to make a backup, and much needed storage is required to store
the tape backups. For those companies that require long term
backed up data, then tape is the solution to
their backup needs.

Magnetic film stored in a climate controlled storage area
can virtually survive hundreds of years; however, how important
is that data and will the devices and software be available
decades from now to actually read the data and restore it?

Today’s market demands low price software and hardware, fast
access and backup times, and convenient restore options. In all
these points tape backup is unfortunately unattractive. First,
the hardware to read and write tapes isn’t standardized. Second,
tapes are not standardized: they require special devices and
software. Tapes needs to be rewound so they don’t provide random
access, unlike USB flash drives and regular hard drives.

Another interesting shift in market trends is that
information is becoming increasingly short-lived. Data does not
need to be kept forever. Usually the “life expectancy” of
information is just a couple of years in most industries, after
which information is becoming obsolete and redundant.

Apart from very few extremely critical applications, tape
backup technology is simply not keeping up with the times. The
cost per GB, the cost of maintenance, and the inconvenient
handling make tape backup an outdated technology which is only
suitable in small niches who can afford it.