

#BACKUP TAPE IUNIT SOFTWARE#
For a long time, however, backup software tended to not directly support the use of disk-based backup targets. Disk-based targets offer faster backups and restores and facilitate more frequent backups. When it comes to backup targets, disk offers a number of advantages over tape. The reason why virtual tape libraries were so important (and to some extent still are) is because they act as a mechanism to ease the transition to disk-based backup targets. That's a fancy way of saying that a virtual tape library is designed to make disk-based storage appear to the backup software as if it were a tape library. The best way to think of a virtual tape library is as a backup storage abstraction technology. Doing so allows aging data to be archived and frees up disk capacity for new data. In this architecture, data is backed up to disk, but as that data ages, software automatically moves the data from disk to tape. Some enterprise environments also use tape as a secondary storage tier. Data is backed up first to disk and then later to tape in what is known as a disk-to-disk-to-tape architecture. Instead, tape libraries are often used as a secondary backup target. In spite of the fact that modern backups tend not to be tape-based, tape is not obsolete.Įven large enterprises still use tape libraries, though not as a primary backup mechanism. Some tape libraries feature multiple tape drives, robotic loaders and use bar codes to track tapes. It's also worth noting that if LTO-6 is used, the uncompressed capacity is 60 TB.

For example, the HP MSL2024 Ultrium 3000 tape library is a rack mountable unit that features a single LTO-4, LTO-5 or LTO-6 tape drive that can accommodate up to 24 tapes for a total device capacity of 36 TB (uncompressed). At its simplest, a tape library consists of a tape drive, a multi-tape magazine, and an autoloader. Tape libraries vary widely with regard to their cost and level of sophistication. Although the drives themselves have evolved over time to become more feature rich and reliable, the basic concept of writing data to magnetic media has not changed. Tape drives have been the de facto standard backup target for decades. This primer on backup will explore backup hardware, common backup challenges and backup software today.
