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Today, the most common backup design is a tape-based system
that's been enhanced with disk. But those who are willing to
rethink things from scratch are examining other ways to improve
their backup environment such as replication, object-based
storage, real-time protection of data, protection of data in its
native format and using systems that perform incremental backups
forever. Cutting the tie to tape Many of the challenges with
most backups stem from reliance on tape. Granted, tape drives
are faster and more reliable than ever before, but tape is still
a sequential-access medium that offers access times in seconds,
instead of the nanosecond access times disk delivers. Tape is
also an open system easily infiltrated by contaminants, unlike
disk drives that are sealed at the factory. A tape drive can
reliably write millions