# Are magnetic tape drives still being used for computer backups? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 9, 2006, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111 "2006-09-09T23:56:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2006, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/1 "2006-09-09T23:56:50Z")
I haven’t seen any consumer type tape drives in years and years. Given cheap blank DVD prices, and the super cheap external hard drives now available, is tape being used for anything? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/2 "2006-09-10T00:01:18Z")
They’re certainly being used for data processing. I’ve heard that the need for high-speed tape drives is one reason why large business still rely on mainframes. I’ve asked when we’ll go totally over to Unix, and I was told that we’re not; we need the speed of the mainframe for a lot of the processing. Or larger datasets are stored on tape, rather than DASD. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/3 "2006-09-10T00:12:22Z")
Yes, tape is the standard backup medium for Windows-based server instalations, as well as many/most mainframes. See [http://exabyte.com/](http://exabyte.com/) for a sample of a current major vendor’s product line. ---
**Author:** ![buckgully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb9ed0/32.png) [@buckgully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buckgully)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/4 "2006-09-10T00:29:29Z")
Tape drives are still popular and cost-effective backup solutions. The current standard is LTO, but you can still find DLT drives too. Not much DAT anymore, they just don’t hold that much. DVDs don’t really factor into backup solutions - at this point backing up 5 or 8 gig at a time you might as well be using floppies. Hard drives are getting more popular as they get cheaper, but they are still quite a bit more expensive per GB than tape. Plus, tapes have a lot of advantages, such as the ability to stuff them in a delivery service mailer to ship them offsite, something that would be more difficult and expensive with a hard drive. The end LTO drives can store 400 gig per tape. The drive and a single set of tapes might cost more than the equivalent RAID array, but a couple of boxes worth of tapes later the tape drive comes out far ahead. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/5 "2006-09-10T04:12:02Z")
one of the big advantages of tape and or hard drive backups is also the use of incremental backups. Between compression and incremental backups you could easily have weeks of daily backups of 250GB of data on one 400GB tape by only saving the changes in that data. It also makes those incremental backups very fast because you are only backing up maybe 100MB of changes instead of the whole 250GB that could take hours. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/6 "2006-09-10T04:15:12Z")
At work we run 4 backups a night over different servers and our AS400. We use 200GB tapes, 400GB tapes and an old 10GB ¼" tape on an old NT server that runs a single App. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/7 "2006-09-10T05:19:14Z")
We use tapes for our backups. While I’m sure that they have some wonderful advantages over hard-drive based backups, I think that by and large they are pretty crappy. I’ve seen multiple (very expensive) tape libraries fail repeatedly, both the robotic part and the actual drives themselves. The tapes also go bad. The backup software is a major PITA to use and performing routine operations (finding the last copy of a file and restoring it) takes a lot of time and is just clunky. I wouldn’t mind using tape for regular full offsite “disaster proofing” backups but if we had a big disk array with a cycling full weekly backup and a week’s worth of daily incremental backups it would be heaven. The vast majority of our file restore requests are of the “Oops, I just deleted something important” or “We need the version of this file that existed two days ago” type. Being able to have random access to that data would save us a huge amount of time (I work at a law firm, time represents a very large amount of money). We’d still have tape for those cases where an earthquake destroys San Francisco. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/8 "2006-09-10T05:42:41Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I haven’t seen any consumer type tape drives in years and years. Given cheap blank DVD prices, and the super cheap external hard drives now available, is tape being used for anything? Tapes are used in data centers and I don’t see it changing soon. It’s a 5billion dollar market. Some reasons: 1. Cheaper than disk. Even as disk prices fall, tape technology continues to advance (see IBM and Fuji recent prototype at 15 times current density). 2. More convenient than disk for off site storage. Businesses and governments keeps lots of stuff for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/9 "2006-09-10T05:46:22Z")
> [@Valgard](#): > > We use tapes for our backups. While I’m sure that they have some wonderful advantages over hard-drive based backups, I think that by and large they are pretty crappy. > > I’ve seen multiple (very expensive) tape libraries fail repeatedly, both the robotic part and the actual drives themselves. The tapes also go bad. The backup software is a major PITA to use and performing routine operations (finding the last copy of a file and restoring it) takes a lot of time and is just clunky. We currently have a good tape library for our as400, and a bad tape library for our Sun and Windows servers. It’s not the fact that it’s tape, it’s the specific product really. > [@](#): > > I wouldn’t mind using tape for regular full offsite “disaster proofing” backups but if we had a big disk array with a cycling full weekly backup and a week’s worth of daily incremental backups it would be heaven. The vast majority of our file restore requests are of the “Oops, I just deleted something important” or “We need the version of this file that existed two days ago” type. Being able to have random access to that data would save us a huge amount of time (I work at a law firm, time represents a very large amount of money). We’d still have tape for those cases where an earthquake destroys San Francisco. I agree. A combination of tape and disk backup is most convenient. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/10 "2006-09-10T06:07:22Z")
Not sure how many people need to say this - but yeah, there’s a lot of tape backup going on. IBM and HP view this as a major market and Sun was willing to dump $4 billion to buy StorageTek to get a better foothold ([cite](http://news.com.com/Sun+to+buy+StorageTek+for+4.1+billion/2100-1012_3-5729219.html)) I’ll spare you the marketing hype, but VTL’s are nifty gadgets for combining tape and disk backups. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/11 "2006-09-10T08:17:04Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > They’re certainly being used for data processing. I’ve heard that the need for high-speed tape drives is one reason why large business still rely on mainframes. I’ve asked when we’ll go totally over to Unix, and I was told that we’re not; we need the speed of the mainframe for a lot of the processing. Or larger datasets are stored on tape, rather than DASD. What OS do your mainframes run? ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/12 "2006-09-10T15:24:28Z")
In addition to Tape Backups for data storage and long term DR purposes, a lot of Data for daily processing is stored on tapes or varying types. My first IT job was in a tape library. Mainframe information (Datasets) is often stored in tapes, which are called up and loaded into tape drives when the information is needed. The company I worked for at the time had about 2 million of these tapes, most of which only had a little bit of information… specific customer accounts for the business that we did processing for, etc. etc. VTL (as someone mentioned above ) or Virtual Tape Library is slowly eating away at these massive libraries, but it’s a long slow process. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/13 "2006-09-10T15:28:51Z")
> [@Eleusis](#): > > What OS do your mainframes run? Heck, all I know is that it’s an IBM mainframe. I haven’t run a console in about 15 years. As a user I can tell you we operate in a TSO environment, and that I work with JCL, Easytrieve Plus, and SAS (just learning that) on it. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/14 "2006-09-10T15:55:15Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Heck, all I know is that it’s an IBM mainframe. I haven’t run a console in about 15 years. As a user I can tell you we operate in a TSO environment, and that I work with JCL, Easytrieve Plus, and SAS (just learning that) on it. Depending on how current your department stays, you a re either running MVS, OS/390, or zOS. (It’s all the same stuff with upgrades, although there is a lot more embedded AIX (UNIX) in the last one.) ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/15 "2006-09-10T16:01:16Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > VTL (as someone mentioned above ) or Virtual Tape Library is slowly eating away at these massive libraries, but it’s a long slow process. For those who don’t know specifically what a VTL is (I didn’t) [Virtual Tape Library](http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/V/virtual_tape_library.html) > [@](#): > > A VTL, or virtual tape library, is an archival backup solution that combines traditional tape backup methodology with low-cost disk technology to create an optimized backup and recovery solution. It is an intelligent disk-based library that emulates traditional tape devices and tape formats. Acting like a tape library with the performance of modern disk drives, data is deposited onto disk drives just as it would onto a tape library, only faster. Virtual tape backup solutions can be used as a secondary backup stage on the way to tape, or as their own standalone tape library solution. A VTL generally consists of a Virtual Tape appliance or server, and software which emulates traditional tape devices and formats ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2006, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/16 "2006-09-13T19:20:36Z")
VTL is a great thing, and in time it will greatly reduce the amount of tape storage. But it’s still buggy. When I left that job several years back, we still ahd Virtual Tapes being requested on occasion on the external stand alone tape drives. Funny. As for why backups aren’t done to DVD, that’s most likely inertia. Of the several AS400 iSeries machines I’ve seen, all had DVD drives. But not all of them will, I imagine. And tapes are more durable than DVD’s, as I think someone else stated. Gosh, it feels good to get a question I actually know something about. Hehehe… ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2006, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/17 "2006-09-13T19:47:55Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > As for why backups aren’t done to DVD, that’s most likely inertia. Of the several AS400 iSeries machines I’ve seen, all had DVD drives. I meant to ask before, what OS/400 is your company on? We are on V5R2 currently. I do not run into many AS400, iSeries, System i people. Jim ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2006, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-magnetic-tape-drives-still-being-used-for-computer-backups/372111/18 "2006-09-13T19:55:12Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > VTL is a great thing, and in time it will greatly reduce the amount of tape storage. > > But it’s still buggy. When I left that job several years back, we still ahd Virtual Tapes being requested on occasion on the external stand alone tape drives. Funny. > > As for why backups aren’t done to DVD, that’s most likely inertia. Of the several AS400 iSeries machines I’ve seen, all had DVD drives. > > But not all of them will, I imagine. And tapes are more durable than DVD’s, as I think someone else stated. > > Gosh, it feels good to get a question I actually know something about. Hehehe… Also LTO3 is considerably faster than DVD write speeds and LTO increases speed by about 50% for each step in roadmap. DVD is not increasing nearly as fast and possibly maxing out due to technical/economic issues.