Here’s an interesting piece of information: Tape drives have an average failure rate of 99%. That means all tape drives will fail at least once in their lifetime, often without any type of warning or signs of failure.
Another problem with tape backup is that it relies on someone in your company to remember to change the tapes. Not only is this a major inconvenience, but it leaves you wide open to human error, which is the #1 cause of data erasing disasters.
To make matters worse, tapes are highly susceptible to heat, cold, magnetism, theft, software errors, and human errors. If you are going to use a tape backup system – you need to test your tape backups regularly to make sure they are viable, and that you can actually restore data from them.
Some other important info:
Tapes ONLY back up your data. Not the programs, software, or your personal settings. If you needed to recover your network from a tape drive, someone will have to completely rebuild your network (very time-consuming – which means you won’t be able to do business for several hours and in some cases multiple days).
So why the heck did we install a tape drive backup in the first place?
Because up until recently, it was the only affordable way to back up large amounts of data. But, that’s all changed and there are far better solutions available.
Here Is What We Are Recommending…
Thanks to major advancements in backup technology, you can now have a completely automated onsite and offsite backup of your data. One of the solutions we use for our customers is a Backup and Data Recovery System called a BDR. We are partial to a BDR solution offered by Chartec, and other vendors offer BDR solutions as well.
When we install this BDR at customer sites, the installation goes very smoothly, and we are able to get the system up and running quickly for them.
Here’s a press release about the Chartec BDR solution that might interest you.
What makes a BDR so much better than tape?
- The BDR device takes an image (snapshot) of your server at pre-set intervals that you can define. If you set the snapshot to be taken multiple times per day, that means you wouldn’t lose an entire day’s worth of work if your server crashed or melted down; just a few minutes worth.
- You don’t have to swap out tapes every day or find somewhere offsite to keep them.
- You have near-instant business continuity if your server failed. In the event of a server crash, the BDR device will TAKE OVER as an acting server (using virtual server technology) so you can keep on working while we rescue and rebuild your failed server. This means you’ll be up and running within 30 minutes instead of potentially being down for DAYS.
- Your data and server image get stored offsite at a secure data facility, and replicated to another data facility to make sure your backup has a backup! This is FAR MORE secure and reliable than old tapes.
If we can help you at all with your backup and disaster recovery planning, or with any of your IT needs, just give us a shout. And if you have a backup and disaster recovery solution you like, or any stories you want to share, please do!
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