Tape Storage Trundles On, Increases Yearly Volume to 128 Exabytes
People who don't use and who don't understand the differences between tape and disk have been saying tape is dying for years.<p>The most common incorrect assertion is that drives don't fail THAT often, so why not just back up to drives and put them on a shelf? But to be generally safe, all data would have to be on at least two drives, which changes the cost noticeably.<p>Older, used LTO drives are actually quite affordable, so I use LTO-4 and LTO-5 tapes to back up all sorts of things for both myself and for my clients. It's surprisingly easy and inexpensive, and pulling files back off is as simple as running pax.