When all is said and done I believe we can’t exclude tape from the data center,

Hardware too on occasion fails. We all know this as do the manufacturers of all the disk and tape hardware in the market, after all they offer warranty contracts.

Moving part or just electronic go bad on occasion.

Today I believe it’s fair to say that good mechanical hardware (such as LTO or enterprise tape drives) are very well made and are reliable.

Can we fix a defective drive – almost certainly 99% of the time the answer is in the afermative. As for disk drives, I can’t recall the last time I hear of anyone repairing the mechanical parts of a drive.

As for the data – tape drives write to tape media and it is rear to have data written by just one tape drive in a data center. For the most part your data can be read.

With the amount of data being stored continuing to grow exponentially, tape offers some inherent advantages over disk-based technologies for long-term data storage, including:

When you combine tape’s superior storage capacities, low cost/GB, and reduced energy costs, tape-based storage solutions provide huge CapEx and Opex cost advantages. Even as technology advances, tape continues to be the ideal solution for long-term data storage and archiving.

Continue using tape, it is reliable and I can state with confidence that most tape drives can and are repaired, I can’t say the same for disk drives.

Sunstar Company.