Tape

Tape is the most common form of removable storage media. It widely adopted and popular. There are several advantages to using tape over other storage devices.

Cost

Tape is cost effective, when compared to disk. While the cost of disk storage is falling, the cost of tape is also falling on a per-GB basis.

Security

It is easy to keep your data secure by securely storing backups or copies at an off-site location. This also guards against on-site data corruption from viruses, fire, natural disasters, accidental deletions, and other data-loss incidents.

Reusable

You can rotate your tapes for backups, which means that you have more than one set of tapes. When one set expires, you can write over the data on it and use the media again.

Capacity

As the amount of data you create grows, you can increase your capacity by adding additional tape volumes.

While there are many advantages to using tape, there are also some drawbacks:

Durability

Tape is reusable, but tapes do wear out over time and require replacement. If they are not replaced when needed, your data can be compromised.

Sequential access to data

Tapes give you access to the data on them in the order in which that data was recorded. If you are looking for a particular item on a tape, it might take some time to locate it.