Backup Tape Media Technologies Clearly Stand Apart

By Author: Jessica McIntosh
Total Articles: 598
Comment this article

The volume of organizational data continues to grow relentlessly, which has made the daily routine job tasks of the IT managers more challenging. The data administrators have to backup, archive, secure and manage these rapidly growing data amounts within their limited IT budgets.

Disks and backup tapes are the two major technologies used for data backups. In this article, a comparison between these two backup storage media systems has been made.

Higher operating costs, less resistance against mechanical shocks, greater maintenance expenses and lower life expectancy have combined to push disk-based systems out of the spotlight. Tape media technology has been a central fixture for the past five decades. Backup tape technology clearly outshines and ensures that your precious corporate data and sensitive documents are preserved longer-term.

Operating expenses and acquisition cost of backup tape technologies are significantly lower than that of disk-based backup solutions. Backup tape cartridges have longer archival life and can withstand unfavorable working conditions. Off-site preservation of backup ...
... media enables your company to easily bounce back if your data is completely or partially wiped out due to threats such as natural disasters, viruses, hardware malfunctions or software bugs. Backup tape cartridges are more durable and have the robustness to provide long term protection against harsh environmental conditions, bumps and unintentional drops.

The most reliable and best-selling backup tapes are SDLT, VXA, AIT, Travan, DAT-DDS, LTO ultrium, DLT and SLR-MLR. I have also listed down the part numbers of few tape cartridges from these market leading tape technologies:

Q1998A, HP AIT-2 tape
dgd150p, Sony DDS4 tape
CDM24, Quantum DDS-3 tape
0HC591, Dell LTO3 ultrium tape
26247007, Fuji LTO4 backup tape
11776, Imation DLT-IV tape
183715, Maxell SDLT-2 tape

On the other hand, RDX disk cartridge is the most successful technology in disk-based system. Foremost brands of RDX technology are HP and Imation. Part numbers of few branded RDX cartridges also have been given below:

HP RDX cartridges

Q2043A, Q2040A, Q2041A, Q2042A

Imation RDX disk cartridges

26607, 27083, 27127

Tape media technologies are much faster. Un-compressed throughput rate of the newest LTO-5 drives reach up to 140MB/second. That means in one hour the LTO-5 tape drives can store up to 1 TB data, whereas the HP RDX technology can manage up to 108 GB/hour. The other leading disk-based systems including RAID-6 and RAID-5 are also unable to match the data transfer speeds of tape media formats.

Disk-based systems require special care and keeping up with a large collection of hard disks can be a real nightmare. Backup tape cartridges can be safely transported to remote sites and reliably preserved for longer time periods. Expandability is the foundation of backup storage strategy. Backup tape technologies feature data compression mechanism. In majority of the tape technologies, the capacity doubles in compressed mode as in LTO, VXA, DLT and SDLT formats. The AIT technology offers even higher compression capability of 2.6:1.

The economics of backup tape technologies is very attractive, which makes it the right solution for today’s collaborative business environment.

Product and software names mentioned throughout this article are trademarks and are sole property of their owners.

Frank Miller is the Marketing Manager of Backuptape and markets Backuptapes.net and Data solution. He has vast experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping buyers who have the backup needs and guide clients about the technology.

Frank Miller
3984 Washington Blvd #503 Fremont CA 94538
Tel: 888-686-8273
Fax: 888-449-5050
Email: sales@backuptapes.net