I'm curious about your experiences with physical off-site backups, specifically tape drives. I work at a small financial institution where we use tape drives to store backups off-site. Management believes it's the safest option, especially due to concerns about online backup solutions—even those from our core banking system. It seems to stem from a mix of safety, security, and the comfort of sticking to what's always worked for them, especially as the C-level team tends to favor older technologies. How do others manage the differing perspectives on technology across generations?
5 Answers
Tape is fantastic because it's so cost-effective. We do disk-to-disk backups to a different site for off-site recovery, making it easier than having to ship tapes around. I find tape is still a solid choice for long-term storage.
Tape may sound old-school, but it’s still got its place, especially for long-term backups. For things like healthcare data, you can't really beat the price per TB. Sure, it’s slower for restores, but you can’t ignore how reliable it is for keeping things safe and offline.
I've been using an LTO7 library for about a decade now, alongside cloud solutions. Tape isn't as outdated as some think—it's still quite effective for storing backups safely and cheaply.
Totally agree with you there!
Honestly, I hardly have any clients looking for tape backups anymore. It’d be nice to chat about data integrity and recovery strategies, but I feel like the conversation rarely goes that deep. Most people just want to keep it simple and safe without diving into best practices.
Haha, right! You start talking best practices, and all you get is an eyebrow raise.
In my experience working with banks, the mix of tape and cloud is still very common. Tape provides a physical layer of security that's hard to beat, especially for compliance. If you want to push your management towards cloud, I recommend running some simulations for disaster recovery scenarios. That'll help show the pros and cons of each method.
Absolutely! It’s amazing how tape still holds its ground in the film and media industry too—especially with the sheer amount of data.