Transitioning From Tape to Disk Drives: Innovative Backup Methods

If your organization depends on tape backup, it's time to think about tapering off. Here are five ways to improve data protection and backup with less tape. IT architects are talking a lot these days about getting rid of tape, and for a multitude of reasons--it's too slow and hard to use, hard disks have gotten cheaper, certain databases and applications require faster recoveries, and so on. According to consulting firm TheInfoPro, 90 percent of companies plan to move from tape to Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) disk drives as part of their backup/recovery and data lifecycle management plans by 2006

But for all the brave talk, few IT organizations have truly eliminated tape from their infrastructure, as IT and systems managers will sheepishly admit. Tape is cheap, it more or less works, and everyone is used to it. Some say there will always be a place for tape in long-term archiving. A 2.5-inch Linear Tape Open (LTO) cartridge that holds 600GB is still one of the more space-efficient archive media.

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