Tape Drive Backup Alternatives

You may ask, is not tape an anachronism in the age of optical disks, removable hard drives and a plethora of whiz-bang, random-access storage media? In lots of ways it is, but because of the nature of backup it doesn't matter that tape is slow & sequential-access. Keep in mind, tape is cheap. Businesses use tape because they find it to be a cost-effective backup solution.

However, in the event you have any issues with tape backup, you'll probably have an interest to know that there are several options to tape.

Backup to NAS devices

NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices are attached directly to your network & can act as a backup store. Obviously, it is convenient to backup files to NAS, as there is no disks or tapes to insert & remove. There is a lot of NAS devices specially designed for tiny businesses. NAS is an excellent choice for network backup.

Backup to REV drive

In April 2004, Iomega released the REV drive -- a new storage device that has greater capacity than tape & is to 8 times faster. Key features are:

* Backup to REV drive is much faster than tape backup.

* REV drive units are more long lasting than tape.

* While tape requires regular cleaning, no cleaning is necessary for REV drive units.

* Backup to REV drive may in fact show more cost-effective for your business than tape, depending on your backup method & other factors.

Otherwise, REV backup is similar to tape backup in principle.

Final notes

Several reliable backup program solutions exist. Choosing is fundamentally a case of deciding which is most suitable for your business. As always, invest in quality backup program. Rather than purchasing specialist REV backup program & NAS backup program, your choice in program ought to permit backup to numerous devices. You will then be able to fine-tune your backup hardware in the future without purchasing new program.