| I already have a tape backup. Isn't that good enough? |
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Today's tape-based data backup infrastructures have inherent weaknesses: Tape is not a random access medium. Backed up data must be accessed as it was written to tape. Recovering a single file from a tape often requires reading a substantial portion of the tape and can be very time consuming. If the machines that contains the tape drive fails the tape cannont be accessed. The recovery time of restoring from tape can be very costly. If one tape fails all of the data on that tape is inaccessible. "While doing routine maintenance work, the technician accidentally deleted applicant information for an oil-funded account — one of Alaska residents' biggest perks — and mistakenly reformatted the backup drive, as well. There was still hope, until the department discovered its third line of defense, backup tapes, were unreadable." Practical Economist |