2007-10-24 02:13:34 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
Tape drives can store a large amount of data that can be easily removed from the premises. In a good backup plan, you remove the backup media from the backup location. I had personal experience when our data center was hit by a tornado. If the tapes were left in the building, they would have been destroyed along with the building. But I had the most recent tapes with me.
Tapes are also relatively inexpensive. I routinely replace my backup tapes to insure reliability.
With my backup plan, tapes are rotated daily, having a tape for every day of the week. Every month I take my oldest tape and use it for an archive. This tape is replaced with a new tape. The archive tape is stored in a vault off the premises.
My tape backups are done nightly, after hours. The backup program has the additional options to backup open files, SQL databases, and Microsoft Exchange server. Doing tape backups during business hours would place too much load on my servers. After hours, very few, if anyone is on the system, so who cares how long it takes or how much load is in the servers, as long as the system is back to normal when users start logging on in the morning.
Hard drives are faster, but you would need a removable drive for every day of the week. These are bulkier than tapes. They are more fragile and expensive than tapes also. I have seen hard drives destroyed when dropped from only a few feet. But tapes can be more sensitive to temperature, so each has advantages and disadvantages here.
Whatever backup plan you select, you should routinely test it. I will occasionally restore some files, just to make sure the backup is working. I have personally seen more than once where someone thought they were diligently making daily backups, only to find that none of the data on the backup media was useful. Ouch
2007-10-24 02:21:07 · answer #1 · answered by Mad Jack 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can fit a lot on a tape (especially the newer ones), the backup is faster and it is more portable as well as keeping your hard drive lean. The down side is that tapes can corrupt very easily and should only be part of a backup system. If you really really must keep some data then you really really do not want to rely solely on a tape.
2007-10-24 02:21:52 · answer #2 · answered by smgray99 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Once i heard that tape drives can retain data for longer ages than CDs and hard disks do.
2007-10-24 02:18:30 · answer #3 · answered by Kausik kumaar 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋