Tape Backups

I shall be discussing today regarding Tape backup. One of the oldest methods to do backup and still currently running, although I must say they are running out of time. Tape Backups are still available, though they are primarily used by large, commercial operations, not by average users.

Tape backup is a form of data storage that is used to create a copy of the data stored in a system at a specific point in time, so that, in the event of a hard disk crash or comparable failure, the data will not be lost. The data are copied onto a magnetic tape, and can be permanently archived for future reference. Before the advent of the compact data disks, using a backup of this type was common for many businesses that relied heavily on computer databases.

Tape backup can be done manually or, with appropriate software, be programmed to happen automatically.

Tape backup can be used for backing up personal computers to backup up large amounts of data. It can also be used as part of storage area networks SAN in large organizations.

Tape backup also includes the ability to restore data that has been backed up back to hard disk storage devices when needed.

There are two common tape rotations that balance performance, cost and safety.

1.     The most simple and least expensive solution is the six-tape (or tape set) rotation. This consists of two alternating full backup tapes and one partial backup tape per day (based on a five-day work week).

2.     Expanding this to seven tapes gives you a separate full backup for off-site storage and keeps you from overwriting your only full backup copy.

You can do Incremental Backups from Monday to Thursday, full backup on Friday and 1 backup to transfer at off-site location.

Following are some of the Advantages and Disadvantages of Tape Backup

Advantages of Tape Backup

Reliability Considering the structure of the tape media, the heads in the tape media are separated from the media. Hence even if the head of the tape fails; then also the media is still in the working condition.

Offsite Storage Available The second major advantage that is in existence along with the usage of the tape drive is that the tapes are usually stored as the offline. If there any natural disaster you always have option available to restore as tapes are stored offsite.

Ease of Use You can find support for tapes, with some good software’s available that make restore of data easy

Disadvantages of Tape Backup

Costly Although, once tape backups were the most economical backups but now with hard disk prices dropping or online backup becoming cheaper, this media now turns to be  more expensive.

Unsecured Storage Tapes are bound to be stolen. Not like online backup where the data is stored in at a secured server. You must find the same tape drive to read tapes in the event of system loss (theft/fire).

Difficult Restores The access time is more in case of the tape drives than in comparison with the other media storage devices. Tapes are sequential-access devices, and are best suited for full-system restores. Finding and restoring individual documents can be a long, slow, and cumbersome process.

Tape backup was only one of the options we had for backup in previous days. But now we have various inexpensive alternatives for backup like Online Backup, Disk Backups, SAN/NAS devices, de-duplication technologies.