PC Data Backups

A Division of AlpineWeb

Disadvantages of Tape Backup

Tape drives are expensive to buy ($350 to thousands), install, administer and fix and they are not nearly as reliable as you think. Just the tapes themselves are expensive to buy ($50 to $100 +), expensive to administer daily, expensive to take offsite and can be expensive to store offsite . . . if you even do take them offsite.

There are many variable costs associated with admininitering your own local tape backups. Once you recognize them you will see that PC Data Backups is hands down the most cost effective, secure and convenient way to automatically back up your data offsite every night.

Local tape backups are done on small magnetic medium tapes that are very suseptable to things like fire, flood, theft, or sabotage. Unless you have a regular offsite backup solution, if your backup tapes go away with the very computer it is backing up, then you will have wasted every dollar and every minute you ever on data backups up until that point.

Disadvantages of tape drives:

Drives are very expensive ($350 to literally thousands): Many times more expensive than our 10 GB offsite data storage at two mirrored data centers.
Tapes are expensive ($50 to $100+). You need a minimum of 5 tapes for a Monday through Friday routation (5 x $50 to $100 = $250 to $500) plus an additional 4 tapes for weekly offsite rotations (4 x $50 to $100 = $200 to $400). Daily and weekly rotations equal 9 tapes x $50 to $100 = $450 to $900 in just media costs alone . . . one to three years worth of our 10 GB automated offsite backup solution.
Tape drive installation is expensive. Most importantly they need to be installed correctly by qualified technicians who typically earn $20 - 200 per hour.
Daily tape backup administration is expensive. Even if you only spend 5 minutes a day rotating tapes, that equals one hour every two weeks, which equals 25 hours a year, multiplied by about $20 per hour minimum for IT time and that equals $500 . . . more than a year's worth of our automated 10 GB offiste backup solution.
Tape storage is expensive. Tapes are extremely susceptible to damage by heat, light, humidity, dust and magnetic fields. They should be stored in climate-controlled locations only.
Tape offsite storage is expensive. Just how do you take your backups offsite? Do you actually do it and how often? Does your expensive IT person perform them or does your least paid employee do it? Where does it end up? In a safety deposit box, a glove compartment, a night stand, a purse, or you don't know?
No data security. Data is stored in un-encyrpted format on portable media.

Tape Drive Overview

Drive costs $240 to thousands, tapes cost $50 - $100+ each

Is it setup properly and how often do you actualy use it?
Is it an older or obsolete model (More than 3 years)?
How old are the tapes you are using (Are they more than one year old)?
How many tapes (at $50 to $100 each) do you use? (A minimum of 5 to 9?)