Tape backup and tape libraries

tape library

In data storage, a tape library is a collection of magnetic tape cartridges and tape drives. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

What are the pros and cons of cloud backup?

Know which type of cloud backup you want to use and the advantages and disadvantages that come with cloud backups before you trust your data to a third-party provider. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Kirvan
• Dave Raffo

Cloud backup vs. traditional backup: Advantages, disadvantages

Cloud backup vs. traditional backup is an important discussion. Although the cloud backup market is soaring, traditional backup players also have much to offer your organization. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor
• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Data backup failure: Top 5 causes and tips for prevention

What can you do to prevent data backup failure? Learn how using the 3-2-1 rule, turning to cloud backup and following other practical steps can help protect your data. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook
• Nick Cavalancia, Techvangelism
• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Use magnetic tape backup to ease storage capacity concerns

Does your organization struggle to store and protect all its data? Magnetic tape storage might be a smart, cost-efficient route, as data volumes continue to increase. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Full vs. incremental vs. differential: Comparing backup types

Evaluate full vs. incremental vs. differential backup, as well as newer types of backup, in synthetic and incremental-forever, to determine what's best for your organization. Continue Reading

By

• Erin Sullivan, Senior Site Editor
• Brien Posey

Craft a secure and reliable backup redundancy strategy

Backup and redundancy are not interchangeable. By using both, backup admins can avoid critical data loss and help ensure recovery. However, watch out for some common missteps. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Future of tape backup built on consistent advancements

Tape still plays a key role in backup, including offline protection from ransomware. What are some key improvements that will keep tape backup relevant in the future? Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Best options for video data storage include cloud, tape

Video data storage presents some challenges, such as dealing with large file sizes and compliance. Here's what to consider when assessing storage options for video data. Continue Reading

By

• John Edwards

Quantum tape libraries gain remote eject capability

Quantum introduced Ransom Block to its Scalar tape libraries, allowing customers to remotely eject tape magazines and prevent cyber criminals from accessing the data within. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

tape drive

A tape drive is a device that stores computer data on magnetic tape, especially for backup and archiving purposes. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Kirvan

Spectra Logic unveils Vail data management software

Spectra Logic launched Vail, a data and storage management software product that unifies data across public clouds and on-premises storage environments. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Rubrik delivers faster backup for Sunrise Express

Sunrise Express switched from running Veritas Backup Exec and tape-based backup to cloud-based backup through Rubrik, where it achieved faster backup and recovery times. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Quantum unveils ActiveScale on-prem archiving service

Quantum's new product combines ActiveScale object storage and Quantum tape to deploy a petabyte-scale cold storage environment within customers' on-prem data centers. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

LTO tape capacity shipments dip, but expected to rise

The return of businesses to the office plus tape's protection against cyber attacks should help increase LTO shipments. In addition, LTO-9 recently launched with higher capacity. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

IBM leads parade of vendors delivering LTO-9 tape drives

While sales of tape drives faltered in 2020, IBM and a handful of storage vendors hope to fuel a comeback with delivery of new offerings that ascribe to the LTO-9 specifications. Continue Reading

By

• Ed Scannell, Freelancer

Data storage trends include increases in cloud, NAND flash

"The cloud is here to stay," said analyst Scott Sinclair. So are containers. NAND flash is another popular storage trend highlighted in a recent report. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

XenData links up tape archives with S3 interface

XenData launched an object storage interface for its LTO archives, along with a new synchronization service that consolidates multiple archives into a single, global repository. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

FalconStor's turnaround prospects see glimmer of progress

FalconStor's annual revenue continues to slump, but an increase in net income, new customer bookings and a renewed focus on cloud data storage bring hope to the company. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

dropout

Dropout refers to data, or noise, that's intentionally dropped from a neural network to improve processing and time to results. Continue Reading

By

• Mary E. Shacklett, Transworld Data

HVAC/R distributor meets SLAs with Cohesity backup

Master Group replaced its legacy infrastructure with Cisco HyperFlex protected by Cohesity backup. This led to faster backups and restores, and an excuse to throw out tape. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Potential magnetic tape storage capacity surges in 'renaissance'

Tape technology continues to improve, resulting in huge possibilities for capacity. With data growth, tape has received new customers; some don't even realize they're using it. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

Tape storage protects research on Antarctic science ship

British Antarctic Survey outfitted the RRS Sir David Attenborough with Quantum QXS hybrid disk and Scalar i3 tape libraries to store and protect research data mid-voyage. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

COVID-19 impact on data backup will continue in 2021

COVID-19 accelerated certain data backup trends throughout 2020. Now, with vaccines available, experts share what they believe 2021 has in store for backup and recovery. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

New XenData appliances provide bridge between disk and tape

XenData seeks to simplify managing LTO tape libraries but finds itself competing with disk, public clouds, other tape vendors and 'poor storage management.' Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

In new LTO roadmap, LTO-9 features 45 TB capacity

Long-term archiving and offline data protection are two key uses for LTO-9, the latest generation of tapes from the LTO Program. The roadmap extends to LTO-12. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

Tape data storage industry tackles challenges, archival uses

The tape data storage market has confronted a major legal issue and a pandemic. Buoyed by strong archival use and offline protection, capacity shipments rose last year. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

How to choose a long-term data archiving services vendor

When evaluating archiving services, you must determine what you need to archive, requirements around that data and how to make the most cost-effective selection. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Kirvan

Quantum tape, NAS recovery stalled by COVID-19, sports break

Quantum says, 'Let the games begin' after sports and entertainment pauses interrupt sales of tape and scale-out NAS storage; vendor also faces possible PPP problems. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Why tape-based backup is making a comeback

New technologies make venerable tape storage tech a smart choice for off-site backups and data archiving. Explore pros and cons, as well as how the pandemic affects tape use. Continue Reading

By

• John Edwards

StrongBox Data adds native LTFS to its StrongLink platform

With native support for any tape library, StrongLink is capable of cross-platform data management whether the underlying storage is flash, disk, tape or cloud. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Add tape backup in 2020 to boost a data protection strategy

Tape has never really gone away. But it can be useful beyond long-term archiving. Learn why IT professionals may want to consider reintroducing tape backup into their data centers. Continue Reading

By

• George Crump

Add tape backup in 2020 to boost a data protection strategy

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Data storage and management tasks that maintain performance

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How to keep physical backup media storage safe

Data is your organization's most important digital asset. Here are some tips on how to ensure physical data backups are stored at a safe and secure location. Continue Reading

By

• John Edwards

Quantum object storage expands with ActiveScale purchase

Quantum object storage will be used in conjunction with StorNext file system technologies to tackle unstructured data associated with streaming video and surveillance. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Quantum tape gets repackaged into turnkey ransomware defense

Quantum says tape's main perk is as an air-gapped defense against ransomware. Its new Ransomware Protection Packs combine tape libraries with a built-in, off-network vault. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Nakivo update supports tape, physical servers

Nakivo now supports tape and physical servers, a departure from its initial focus on cloud and VMs. Demand and expert opinion suggest there will always be need for physical backup. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

XenData launches plug-and-play archive appliance

XenData's X1 appliance makes archiving by tape, Sony Optical Disc Archive and cloud object storage simpler and more network-friendly. It connects archives for multiple users. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

10 steps to creating an effective data backup strategy

A common denominator in well-functioning backup infrastructures is effective process and control. This checklist highlights 10 areas to help build a better backup practice. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor
• James Damoulakis, GlassHouse Technologies

Talking magnetic tape for storage with Quantum

Mark Pastor of Quantum speaks in this Q&A about tape's advancements and uses, as well as challenges in the market, including 'old perceptions' of tape. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

Archive vs. backup and why you need to know the differences

Archiving and data backup are both key pieces of data protection. They can complement each other, but both provide distinct and important capabilities. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor
• George Crump

IBM Spectrum Protect supports container backups

IBM focuses on data protection with backup support for container volumes in Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift environments, VMs in VMware Cloud on AWS; adds new Virtual Tape Library. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

How tape backup systems improve data protection

Have you analyzed your data protection lately? Tape backup could be a savior if you get hit with a ransomware attack or other malware. Learn more about five tape-related terms. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

TACC updates archive with Quantum tape technology

TACC added a Quantum tape library to its Ranch long-term storage system for better space allocation control and to replace an aging Oracle HSM-based archive system. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Quantum CEO looks to modernize data storage platforms

Quantum continues support of legacy tape, NAS and disk, but its products are now 'software-defined and hyper-converged.' CEO Jamie Lerner says its SEC probe is winding down. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

7 rules for effective data backup procedures

If you're responsible for data backups on multiple systems, strong policies are highly recommended. This tip gives you seven rules to follow for effective data backup procedures. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook and Paul Crocetti

How is tape backup doing in 2019?

Industry experts say tape isn't going away and the technology is actually improving. The problem, they say, is vendors aren't talking enough about this 'old-school' backup method. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Jon Toigo, data storage analyst and author remembered

Editors and colleagues pay tribute to the respected data storage analyst, pundit and author, who was a longtime Storage magazine columnist and TechTarget contributor and speaker. Continue Reading

By

• James Alan Miller, Senior Executive Editor

Vanderbilt books Spectra tape library for research data

Research data can accumulate fast. A Spectra Logic tape library stores petabytes for Vanderbilt's research center, and the university plans to use far more backup storage space. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

XenData introduces magnetic tape backup migration service

XenData now offers a service to move magnetic tape backup data to either a newer tape format or to cloud, allowing customers with old tapes to get rid of legacy systems. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

New Quantum backup appliance brings Veeam to tape

Integrated disk backup appliances are now common, but Quantum and Veeam have taken the converged architecture to tape backups to eliminate the need for a dedicated external server. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Tape storage capacity plays important role as data increases

There's a long runway for tape, with hundreds of terabytes of storage capacity soon available on a single cartridge. Flash, disk, the cloud and tape will all be key for storage. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

New Quantum CEO Lerner sees a future in rich media

The former Cisco exec hopes to use Quantum's high-ingest technology and tape storage to serve a growing need in the surveillance, medical and entertainment markets. Continue Reading

By

• Johnny Yu

Disaster avoidance requirements ensure business continuity

Include disaster recovery and avoidance requirements as design goals when creating storage and production environments to ensure business continuity during weather events. Continue Reading

By

• Jon Toigo

The evolution of backing up to tape and where it stands

Tape backup continues to have a cost advantage over disk, and there are still some use cases where the medium makes sense and will do so for the foreseeable future. Continue Reading

By

• Logan G. Harbaugh, Independent consultant

Spectra tape library line grows with Stack, T950v

Spectra Logic tape library choices now include the scalable Stack and a cheaper version of its previous T950 line. Tape can be a key storage element, as data sets continue to grow. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

Build data storage reliability into a backup infrastructure

In today's market, there are a variety of data backup options. Here's how to make sure your organization's essential data will always be there when it is needed. Continue Reading

By

• John Edwards

Data backup tools: Users want to handle more data more easily

Businesses want data backup that handles more data than ever, but with software and hardware that's easier to implement and manage than what they're already using. Continue Reading

By

• James Alan Miller, Senior Executive Editor

NVMe flash storage doesn't mean tape and disk are dying

The advent of NVMe, software-defined storage and other newer storage technologies doesn't mean we'll be looking at all-silicon-based storage any time soon. Continue Reading

By

• Jon Toigo

Peering into the future of enterprise storage for 2018

Rich Castagna takes a crack at the annual rite of prognostication with a bold look -- unfettered by truth, reality and sanity -- at data storage trends in the coming year. Continue Reading

By

• Rich Castagna

A long hot summer for the enterprise storage market

Use of magnetic tape in enterprise storage is set to break out, even as the cloud market slows and software-defined storage and hyper-converged infrastructure stumble. Continue Reading

By

• Jon Toigo

Data storage infrastructure starts with science-fiction inspiration

Find out what happens when you take a cue from an old science-fiction movie and build an 'interocitor' that becomes its own storage infrastructure. Continue Reading

By

• Jon Toigo

How can I ensure that my tape backup technology is secure?

With the portability of tapes and the ability to store terabytes of data on a single cartridge, appropriate security of tape backup storage is imperative. Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Tape archiving tips for a better storage strategy

Studies show that tape archives are a comparatively cheaper method of long-term data retention. Explore how to use active archive and other storage technologies with a tape system. Continue Reading

By

• Jon Toigo

Server-side flash technology lifts solid-state adoption

Server-side solid-state storage is more ubiquitous than ever due to growing capacities and rapidly dropping flash technology prices. There are a many ways to install flash technology in a server, though there are decisions to make before you buy. We examine flash technology form factors, interfaces, protocols and capacities, as well as use cases, advantages and limitations.

Disk-based backups revolutionized data protection. While far more expensive to deploy and maintain than tape, a growing list of vendors are consolidating backup with other secondary storage requirements into appliances that make disk-based backup more cost-effective.

Although tape may no longer be the storage medium of choice for backup and disaster recovery, it still has a solid place in enterprises as an archive tier and as a transportation and sharing format for certain industries. In this issue of Storage magazine, we explore the state of the art of tape and its potential use cases today.

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Tape archive remains the recording medium of choice

Tape archiving offers low-cost, long-term data protection in a variety of industries, keeping it atop the list of data center backup technologies. Continue Reading

By

• Eric Slack, Evaluator Group

Vendors, analysts guess future of data storage in 2016

After Rich Castagna offered his look at the future of data storage in 2016, vendors and analysts shared their guesses on what will happen this year. Continue Reading

By

• Rich Castagna

Tape vs. disk: Which offers the greatest energy efficiency?

Jon Toigo looks at the factors that determine whether disk or tape is more energy-efficient. Continue Reading

By

• Jon Toigo

LTO tape vendors announce LTO-9 and LTO-10

LTO tape vendors extend the LTO roadmap to include generations 9 and 10 with increasing capacity and transfer rates. Continue Reading

By

• Andrew Burton

How to estimate the lifespan of backup tape media

Brien Posey offers advice on how to estimate the useful lifespan of backup tape media based on how it is used, in this Expert Answer. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Backup targets: Tape libraries and VTLs

Tape drives, tape libraries and virtual tape libraries are among the popular backup target options available today. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Techniques for performing EFS recovery

IT pros face the daunting task of EFS-encrypted data, but Brien Posey offers EFS recovery tricks in this tip. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

How to dispose of unwanted backup media

Brien Posey looks at the inherent problems with backup media disposal. Because it contains sensitive data, you must dispose of it safely. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Disk can help with backup tape rotation strategy

Backup expert George Crump explains how to use disk to get the most out of your backup tape rotation strategy. Continue Reading

By

• George Crump

Pros and cons of backup tape encryption

Independent backup expert Brien Posey outlines what's good and what's bad about backup tape encryption in this tip. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Backup challenges: Slow backup and recovery, growing capacity demands

Our recent survey data indicates slow backup and recovery, growing capacity demands and virtual server backup remain IT pain points. Continue Reading

By

• John Hilliard, TechTarget
• Andrew Burton

Protecting petabytes: Best practices for big data backup

How do you protect the massive data sets? Learn the best practices and products used for big data backup disaster recovery. Continue Reading

By

• Todd Erickson

SAN backup and recovery

Moving data can complicate your backup efforts. In this tip, you’ll learn backup goals for SAN environments and backup methods to achieve those goals. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Tape backup encryption best practices

Tape backup encryption is being used for many organizations, but figuring out how to implement it can be challenging. Learn about tape encryption best practices in this article. Continue Reading

By

• Jeff Boles, Taneja Group

LTO-5 tape can't stop backup hardware trend toward disk

Faster, denser LTO-5 tape can't stop backup hardware trend toward disk backup and data deduplication devices; leading backup software vendors partner for new disk backup appliances. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

Data archiving techniques: Choosing the best archive media

Read this tip about data archiving techniques and to discover what's the best archive media for your organization: tape, disk, optical or the cloud. Continue Reading

By

• Pierre Dorion

An off-site tape storage tutorial: Tape backup and recovery best practices

Tape still fills the role of media for choice for off-site vaulting, but organizations have other options such as the cloud and replication for securing data for disaster recovery. Continue Reading

As the WORM turns: The pros and cons of WORM disk vs. tape

Learn about how WORM disk is still an important option for data retention, and about the pros and cons of using WORM disk vs. tape. Continue Reading

By

• Alan R. Earls

Buying your first backup tape library: What you need to know

In this tip, find out what you need to know when buying your first tape library, including when to consider a library, the cost of libraries and which format best fits your needs. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook

Best practices for reusing data backup tapes

W. Curtis Preston answers common questions about reusing backup tapes in this Q&A. Continue Reading

Buying the best backup tape library: Tape libraries vs. tape autoloaders

Learn about how to buy the best backup tape library and the key differences between tape libraries and tape autoloaders in this tip. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Are LTO-4 tapes compatible with other versions of LTO tape technology?

Dave Ellis explains what LTO-4 is and its compatibility with other versions of LTO in this expert response. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Ellis

LTO tape technology continues to evolve with LTO 5

W. Curtis Preston, TechTarget executive editor and independent backup expert, outlines how LTO tape differs from other tape media, discusses the various generations of LTO tape, and the pros and cons of LTO in this Q&A. Continue Reading

The pros and cons of tape media storage for backup and recovery in SMB environments

Learn about the pros and cons of tape media storage, and if tape storage is the right fit for your SMB environment. Continue Reading

By

• Mark Brownstein

An introduction to data backup tape rotation schemes

Learn about the different types of data backup tape rotation schemes to determine which one is best for your environment. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Data backup and recovery FAQs

Check out our FAQs for information on a variety of topics from tape backup to data deduplication to CDP and more. Continue Reading

File-level versus image-level data backup: Chapter excerpt from "VMware VI3 Implementation and Admin

Learn about file-level backup versus image-level backup, and attaching tape drives to ESX hosts in our chapter excerpt from "VMware VI3 Implementation and Administration." Continue Reading

Symantec Backup Exec troubleshooting performance tips

If you're using Backup Exec and your performance isn't what it should be, some troubleshooting may be in order. Here's a list of potential things to look out for. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook

Troubleshooting data backup error log messages

Knowing what how to read your data backup error log messages can help you save time fixing common backup problems. Learn about the most common backup error messages in this tip. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

How to optimize your backup tape rotation strategy

Backup tape rotation is an essential part of any good data backup plan. Here's a look at some of the more common tape rotation strategies and the pros and cons of each. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook

The true role of a backup administrator

When asked what they do on a daily basis, some data backup administrators often opt for the short answer and reply, "I look after data backups." While this is not necessarily the wrong answer, it is not the full answer. Continue Reading

By

• Pierre Dorion

Four ways to streamline your data backup process

Are your data backup operations out of control? Here are four tips to help you streamline your data backup and recovery process. Continue Reading

By

• Russ Fellows, Evaluator Group

The cost of tape vs. disk data backup

Here's how to determine the cost of disk vs. tape in your data backup environment. Continue Reading

By

• Russ Fellows, Evaluator Group

Five tips for creating a backup service-level agreement

Learn how to write a backup service-level agreement that will keep the peace between IT and information users. Continue Reading

By

• George Crump