Data is the lifeblood of any organisation so the management of it should be of paramount importance. This is where storage comes into play. There are many types of IT storage available but tape is by far the most well-known and indeed deployed. But as the tape market has evolved over the past few years, what are the challenges facing businesses when selecting a storage strategy and how can they get it right?

Aligning storage with business need
Before selecting any type of storage it is important to understand that different applications and areas of business have different requirements. Many industries have regulations regarding the retention of data for a certain period of time which calls for a great deal of storage capacity and the ability to easily retrieve it on demand.

For many businesses, tape makes up the core of their storage strategy. At Overland, our own research indicates this to be true for 50 per cent of businesses, with over three quarters of those surveyed also seeing a future for tape storage.

The rise and fall of tape storage
Until a few years ago, there were two main types of tape storage: Super Digital Tape Linear (SDLT) and Linear Tape Open (LTO). In terms of capability, there isn’t much to choose between the two, but with backing from industry heavyweights, including HP and IBM, LTO has risen in popularity, becoming the near industry standard. As LTO continues to out-sell SDLT by 6:1, its sole remaining manufacturer has recently ceased development and support for SDLT, leaving users of the once dominant format out in the cold.

This is particularly true of many smaller businesses, who selected SDLT as a more cost effective option for backup over LTO five or six years ago. This lack of support from vendors makes it all the more urgent that users start phasing out SDLT now. Consider using it for data archiving purposes, recycling tapes every five years or so.

The tape medium as a whole is still very much alive and businesses should not abandon it altogether but start migrating to LTO for cost effective and environmentally friendly backup needs. As LTO wins the tape war, vendors and resellers need to provide more advice and education to businesses, to improve understanding of the implications that the death of SDLT may have and how to make the most out of existing storage infrastructure and new and evolving formats.

Kevin Gosden, Channel Manager Overland Storage

Trustco provides storage solutions and advice. Contact us to discuss your requirements or see our storage page.