On Thursday 18 August 2005 22:13, Claude Jones wrote: > On Thu August 18 2005 3:18 pm, Mike McCarty wrote: > > As I mentioned before, tape is very reliable. It has been shown to have > > 20+ year retention. One gets "wear and tear" only when the tape actually > > moves. For data archival purposes, this is effectively never. > > Since I've spent over thirty years in the media sector, first sound > engineering, and now television, I can't let this claim pass. You've > repeated it as gospel. I'm sure there are some studies that would make your > point, but, in real world conditions, I would never trust critical backups > to tape. Even supposing a tape's data was intact after 20 years, what would > be the state of the technology? What would you retrieve your data with? > I've dealt with every format of tape there is. Even if it's stored > properly, vertically, not horizontal on the spool, in temperature and > climate controlled conditions, there is a wide disparity in tape longevity. > BetaSP tapes that cost us $60+ when purchased new, will vary widely in > their playability even after ten years. Older 3/4" stuff is deteriorating > rapidly in our archive, and we're in a rush to transfer mode lately, to get > the material off them and on to newer media. The machines that will play > this stuff are also getting harder and harder to maintain, and find parts > for. I've encountered many horror stories about computer tape backups as > well. Meticulously done, perfectly stored, and tape drives kept up to spec, > may succeed in the 20-year life you speak of, but those conditions are > almost never met in the real world. If you have the staff to maintain the > stuff, the equipment to be maintained, the climate controlled storage > environment, along with many other factors, you might get by with tape > backup - I personally would only recommend tape as a secondary repository. Agreed. I can't recommend tapes for anything longer than a few weeks if you really need your data. We have all kinds of tape formats where I work and none have ever been reliable for more than a few months. The only viable option you have for long term is MO... Peter.
