Tapes are meant for backup. Though invented long ago and not invented for backups, they are still suited for backups because of two things: Reliability and Cost per capacity. They are very suitable for an enterprise, large or medium.
There are some problems with tape backup that make it less suited for a causal, personal user or someone without dedicated, trained IT department.
- Tape backups require tape drives. And tape drives come in varied specifications and types. You will be spoilt for options when choosing one.
- You can not read tape backups on all computers. Suppose you require to urgently recover a data to a laptop. You can not do that easily. Two issues:
Firstly, the tape drive may not be compatible with the target computer. It might require SCSI cards, exotic cables or drivers.
Secondly, your only tape drive might be damaged by the same disaster that destroys your data. Imagine that your workstation is destroyed due to a power surge or lighting surge. Maybe your tape drive or SCSI card gets damaged too. Keeping a second tape drive ready or as spare is not for everybody's budget right? - It requires an up-front investment. You need a tape drive, a decent one will cost Rs. 15 to 20K. And you need to buy at least some 9 tapes to have full rotation.
- You must rotate to benifit. You must understand and adhere to a proper tape rotation scheme to benefit from the tape backup solution. If you do not know what is stored where in a hurry, what use is it? If you do not swap the tapes properly, you will overwrite backups and may loose backup. Religiously rotating tapes requires trained staff. (If you can buy Auto-loaders, you are not the small biz, casual or personal user I am writing about).
So what can the small biz or personal users use for backup? In a few days...
