Are tape backups a thing of the past when it comes to disaster recovery?
I guess we have to look at disaster recovery, when it comes to tapes, in order of priorities. So, if we're talking about your most critical applications nowadays -- your most critical data -- tape backup is actually losing favor to disk backup or data replication.
@24666 That said, we always have to keep in mind that not all data is created equal and is not as critical as others. Tape still has a very good place in the DR scheme of things just because of its low cost and ease of portability to send it offsite. I would not consider tape a thing of the past just yet -- it's still very useful. But, because of its relatively limited performance, and also at times the inability to acquire the tape rapidly, it's more suited for lower criticality or lower priority applications or data that still have to be recovered in the event of a site-wide disaster.
So, I'd say tapes are still very current, and until we find cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap disk, they're still very much in fashion.
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