Storage readers have spoken: Tape isn't going away. Although some survey respondents say they don't use tape at all or have removed it from their backup strategy, 69% have no intention of taking tape out of the mix.
An overwhelming 90% say they have tape somewhere in their backup infrastructure--either backing up only to tape (40%) or backing up first to disk and then to tape (50%). Only 10% of readers back up only to disk, while none of our respondents uses an outsourced backup provider.
Fifty-seven percent of readers prefer tape to disk for long-term and offsite backup, the reason most frequently given by those continuing to use tape. Almost a third also indicate that they have well-established tape backup procedures in place, and 25% report that their tape infrastructure is relatively new and performing well.
Overall, respondents' comments focused on a single theme: While disk beats tape for recovering online data, tape's the better bet when it comes to offsite storage. "Disk backups alone could be used for business continuity," writes one reader, "but tapes will always be required for disaster recovery purposes."
--Trina MacDonald
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This was first published in October 2006