Tape drives

Backup is a critical part of a business data protection plan and although the past couple of years have seen a concerted move towards disk-to-disk (D2D) backup, tape will always play an essential role in any strategy.

Overall storage costs for tape are unbeatable and it's still the best choice for off-site storage as it is designed to be portable. Furthermore, the data cartridges have higher environmental tolerances making them a far safer choice for storing in a remote location.

In this group test we take a look at the latest and greatest in the SMB and mid-range tape backup market and bring you a round-up of the top eight tape drives. The format wars continue unabated - since the incredibly popular DDS format was canned by Sony, Seagate and HP back in 2001 there has been a concerted effort by most vendors to grab some of the massive market share it had at the time. So at the lower end of the market we have DAT72, AIT-2 Turbo and VXA plus Quantum's latest DLT-V4 formats on test.

The battle for the mid-range backup market looks just as interesting as LTO (linear tape open) and SDLT (Super DLT) slug it out for a piece of the action and we test LTO-2, LTO-3 and SDLT600 drives. Sandwiched in between we have Sony's latest SDX-3X format which aims to solve the compatibility issues surrounding AIT-4.

It's clear there is a wide range of formats to choose from at all levels of the tape backup market and no two companies will have the same requirements. Consequently, we've selected a wide range of drives that offer different combinations of speed, capacity and price to help you pick the right one for your backup requirements.

Dave Mitchell

Dave is an IT consultant and freelance journalist specialising in hands-on reviews of computer networking products covering all market sectors from small businesses to enterprises. Founder of Binary Testing Ltd – the UK’s premier independent network testing laboratory - Dave has over 45 years of experience in the IT industry.

Dave has produced many thousands of in-depth business networking product reviews from his lab which have been reproduced globally. Writing for ITPro and its sister title, PC Pro, he covers all areas of business IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, network security, data protection, cloud, infrastructure and services.