As data growth increases, ramping up storage capacity and costs, older backup methods once presumed obsolete — such as magnetic tape — are a saving grace.
But was tape ever truly dead? Hardly.
For a while, tape had a reputation for being outdated. This isn’t surprising given that newer technologies have overcome some of tape’s most problematic limitations. However, interest returned as organizations began generating data at unprecedented rates and exponential data growth became the norm, thanks in large part to AI’s extensive training requirements and the increase in IoT devices.
One of the main problems with unbridled data growth is it strains storage resources. Without proper storage, businesses face operational inefficiencies, compliance issues and data loss. For companies storing the bulk of their data on-premises, it can be tough to keep up with capacity demands. Meanwhile, organizations storing most of their data in the public cloud must contend with ever-increasing costs.
Backup systems aren’t immune to these growing pains. Modern disk-based backup systems struggle with capacity limitations and spiraling costs. Data reduction methods, such as compression and deduplication, help to reduce storage consumption, but their effectiveness varies widely by data type. Some data simply cannot be deduplicated or compressed.
Going back to basics with tape backup provides a solid foundation for organizations to cope with data growth. From there, leadership can create a multi-pronged strategy that adheres to the 3-2-1 backup rule while limiting costs and freeing up capacity.
What sets magnetic tape apart
Magnetic tape storage was the definitive backup media for decades. This technology stayed dominant for so long because it combined high capacity with low media cost and portability.
Data influx is so great that companies struggle to store it all. Public clouds offer virtually unlimited storage capacity and bill monthly for the stored data. These storage charges only account for a fraction of the total cloud backup costs. Providers typically bill customers any time they access their backups. If an organization ever needs to restore a cloud-based backup to a system on-premises or in a competing cloud, it will generally incur a hefty data egress fee.
In contrast, magnetic tape shifts to fixed spending for the media plus the ongoing costs to maintain the equipment and storage environment. Magnetic tape capacities vary based on the tape format and whether the data is compressed. Current generation LTO-10 tapes have a native capacity of 30 or 40 TB that increases to 75 or 100 TB respectively when using compression.
An organization considering backup options must look beyond cost and capacity. The data’s change rate is another important factor. If an on-premises data set has a high change rate, then a cloud backup system might not work due to bandwidth bottlenecks. Modern tape drives offer large local throughput to keep pace with faster data streams to avoid these cloud backup issues.
Tape is just one part of a backup strategy
A multipronged backup strategy is the best way to keep costs in check and address logistical challenges. Most organizations follow a 3-2-1 backup strategy using multiple types of storage media. This combination might include cloud and disk backups alongside magnetic tape.
Cloud-to-cloud backups are usually the best choice for protecting data that’s already in the cloud. There are advantages to backing up on-premises data to the cloud, but leadership can’t ignore the time and money required to restore on-premises data from a cloud backup. Tape provides an offline copy, which is additional protection from ransomware.
Disk-based approaches are common for backing up on-premises data. Continuous data protection tools relying on disk can back up data almost instantly. However, continuous backup systems have a finite storage capacity.
Magnetic tape storage remains a highly viable option for data archiving. Many organizations have data that they rarely access but must retain due to compliance requirements. Moving that data from primary storage to tape frees up space on the disk-based backup system. While archiving this type of data to the cloud is optional, tape is often the less expensive long-term choice. Tape is also easily portable, enabling organizations to fulfill the 3-2-1 strategy and move important data off site to a secure location.
Brien Posey is a former 22-time Microsoft MVP and a commercial astronaut candidate. In his more than 30 years in IT, he has served as a lead network engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense and a network administrator for some of the largest insurance companies in America.
