Tape Library as a Backup Solution: A Practical Guide

Some might consider magnetic tapes an anachronistic storage medium. However, tape technology is actually experiencing a strategic renaissance. Driven by constant data growth, rising cyber threats, and strict regulatory requirements, the tape library is proving to be an indispensable component of a resilient and cost-effective IT infrastructure. In this guide, we illuminate the technological foundations, the strategic business case, and the operational best practices for deploying tape libraries.

The Role of the Tape Library: How Does It Fit with Cloud and SSD?

The emergence of cloud and flash storage has not displaced tape technology but has rather redefined and sharpened its role. The global market for tape storage is seeing stable growth; forecasts predict an increase from USD 3.71 billion in 2025 to USD 6.17 billion by 2034. Analysts from IDC predict that around 284 zettabytes of data will be generated worldwide in 2027 (a zettabyte equals a quadrillion gigabytes). A crucial aspect here is that a large portion of this data—estimated at 60 to 70 percent—is accessed infrequently but must still be kept up-to-date, for example, for compliance or analysis purposes. Storing these vast amounts of cold data on expensive, high-performance SSDs or in active cloud storage tiers is not economically viable. This creates a structural need for a cost-optimized storage layer that precisely fills this gap. Due to its extremely low cost per terabyte, high capacity, and longevity, tape technology is the ideal solution for this task. Thus, the relevance of tape is not a competition with cloud and SSD, but a logical and necessary complement in an intelligently tiered storage architecture.

Business Drivers: Cost, Compliance, Cyber Resilience

Three central business drivers underscore the strategic importance of tape libraries in today’s corporate environment:

1. Cost Optimization: For the long-term archiving of large data volumes, tape offers the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of all storage media. This is due to the low cost per gigabyte, high energy efficiency, and long lifespan of the media.

2. Compliance and Regulations: Legal and industry-specific retention requirements, such as those mandated by GDPR, HIPAA, or SEC regulations, often require immutable and secure storage of data for periods of ten years or more. Tape technologies like WORM (Write Once, Read Many) excellently meet these requirements.

3. Cyber Resilience: Ransomware attacks have become an existential threat to businesses. Here, tape technology offers a decisive advantage: the physical “air gap.” An offline tape cartridge is disconnected from the network and unreachable by attackers, making it the ultimate “last line of defense.” Many cyber insurance policies recognize this advantage and increasingly demand robust backup strategies that include an offline component like tape.

The tape library is thus a unique technology that addresses three critical and distinct business risks—financial, legal, and operational—with a single solution. An investment in a tape library is therefore not just a decision for the IT department, but a strategic risk management measure that concerns the CFO (through TCO reduction), the Chief Compliance Officer (through legally compliant archiving), and the CISO (through cyber resilience) alike. This convergence of benefits strengthens the business case for tape far beyond a mere cost-benefit analysis.

Fundamentals of Tape Library Technology

To fully leverage the strategic advantages of tape libraries, a basic understanding of their operation and underlying technologies is necessary. From automated robotics to open file systems, tape technology has steadily evolved to meet the demands of modern data centers.

What is a Tape Library?

A tape library, also known as a tape silo or jukebox, is an automated data storage system. Its core components are:

• A magazine: This is where magnetic tape cartridges (tapes) are stored in special compartments called slots.

• One or more tape drives: These are the devices that physically write data to and read data from the tapes.

• Robotics: A robotic arm automatically moves the tapes between the magazine slots and the drives.

This high degree of automation is the crucial added value of a library over a single tape drive. It transforms a potentially manual and error-prone process into a scalable “lights-out” operation suitable for modern data centers. The entire control is managed by backup or archiving software. This software reads the barcodes on the cartridges for unique identification and maintains an internal database that records which data is stored on which tape. The capacities of tape libraries are enormously scalable, ranging from small autoloaders with a few terabytes to enterprise systems that can manage hundreds of petabytes or even exabytes of data.

Overview of Tape Technologies

Today, the market for tape technologies is largely dominated by the LTO standard, supplemented by highly specialized enterprise formats.

LTO Roadmap (Linear Tape-Open)

LTO is an open standard, originally developed by HPE, IBM, and Quantum, which now accounts for the largest share of the market. The LTO roadmap traditionally foresees a doubling of storage capacity with each new generation, which is released every two to three years.

• LTO-8 (2017): Offers a native capacity of 12 TB (30 TB compressed) and a transfer rate of 360 MB/s.

• LTO-9 (2021): Increased native capacity to 18 TB (45 TB compressed) at a speed of 400 MB/s.

• LTO-10 (2025): Was introduced with a native capacity of 30 TB (75 TB compressed) and an unchanged transfer rate of 400 MB/s. The decision to prioritize capacity over a further increase in speed reflects the market demand for maximum storage density for archiving purposes.

• Future Generations: The current roadmap extends to LTO-14. For LTO-11, 72 TB is expected, and for LTO-12, 144 TB of native capacity per cartridge is anticipated, underscoring the future-proof nature of the technology.

Enterprise Formats (IBM 3592, Oracle T10000)

In addition to the open LTO standard, proprietary enterprise formats exist that have been developed specifically for high-end requirements, particularly in the mainframe environment. These include IBM’s 3592 series and Oracle’s T10000 series. These formats often offer even higher performance and specific features but are not compatible with LTO or with each other. IBM’s TS11xx drives, in particular, are a key element in the largest available tape libraries, enabling extreme storage densities.

LTFS as a File System and Open Standard

The Linear Tape File System (LTFS) is an innovation that has revolutionized the use of tapes. LTFS is an open standard (ISO/IEC 20919:2016) that makes a tape self-describing by storing metadata (filenames, directory structure, etc.) in a separate partition on the cartridge. The result: a tape formatted with LTFS can be mounted and read by any compatible drive like an external hard drive or a USB stick—including drag-and-drop functionality, all without special backup software. This technology bridges the gap, making tape relevant for modern, file-based workflows beyond classic backup. Before LTFS, a tape was a “black box” accessible only with the original backup software. LTFS decouples the data from the application, enabling new use cases in areas such as media and entertainment, research, or big data, where large amounts of data need to be archived cost-effectively and also easily exchanged between different systems and applications. It is the key technology that has unlocked tape storage for the age of unstructured data.

Operating Principle: Writing, Reading, and Positioning

Modern LTO tapes use a sophisticated method called serpentine recording. Instead of writing data linearly from beginning to end, it is recorded in many parallel, longitudinal tracks. When the end of the tape is reached, the read/write head shifts slightly sideways and writes the next tracks in the opposite direction back onto the tape. This process repeats in a zigzag pattern until the entire tape is filled. Because a magnetic tape is a flexible medium that can stretch or shift slightly, extremely precise head positioning is required. For this purpose, several servo bands with a unique magnetic pattern are recorded on the tape during its manufacture. These servo tracks run the entire length of the tape and serve as permanent guidelines for the drive to keep the read/write head on the correct data track in real-time with microscopic accuracy. This operating principle leads to a trade-off: serpentine recording allows for enormous storage density but necessitates sequential access to the data. While the pure data transfer rate can be very high in streaming mode, even surpassing that of hard drives, random access to a small, specific file is slow. The drive must physically wind the tape to the exact position of the file, which can take several seconds. This characteristic is of central importance for decision-makers: tape is ideal for workloads involving large, sequential write and read operations (e.g., full system backups, archiving large video files), but unsuitable for applications requiring fast, random access to many small files (e.g., a transactional database).

Comparison to Disk and Cloud Storage

The positioning of the tape library in the storage ecosystem becomes clearest in a direct comparison with hard disk and cloud-based solutions. The following table summarizes the key distinguishing features for decision-makers.

Table 1: Comparison of Storage Technologies (Tape vs. Disk vs. Cloud Cold Storage)

The Business Case: Strategic Decision Factors for Tape

The decision for or against a tape library is not purely technical but a strategic business decision. It is based on a careful consideration of cost, performance, sustainability, and risk management. The business case for tape becomes stronger the larger the data volumes to be archived and the higher the requirements for security and long-term cost control.

Capacity vs. Performance Requirements

Tape’s greatest strength lies in handling enormous data capacities at unbeatably low costs. If the main requirement is to store petabytes of data for years or decades, tape is the technologically and economically superior solution. Its performance, measured as sequential transfer rate, is quite competitive. Modern LTO drives achieve transfer rates that can match or even exceed those of hard disk systems. An often-overlooked aspect is the “crossover point” in recovery performance. While hard drives are significantly faster for accessing small, randomly distributed files, this picture reverses for restoring large amounts of data. For restoring a very large file or a complete system (e.g., over 30 GB), the total time on a tape system can be shorter. The reason is that the initial latency from locating and loading the tape is amortized by a long, uninterrupted, and very fast data transfer. This insight is crucial for planning disaster recovery scenarios.

TCO Comparison: Tape vs. Disk vs. Cloud Cold Storage

The analysis of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is a central pillar of the business case. For long-term archiving, tape systems consistently have the lowest costs. This results from a combination of several factors:

• Acquisition Costs: The cost per terabyte for tape media is significantly lower than for hard drives or cloud storage.
• Operating Costs: The energy consumption of tape systems is drastically lower. A study shows that a tape solution consumes up to 96 percent less power over a ten-year period than a comparable hard disk solution.
• Cloud Cost Traps: While the pure storage costs in the cloud (e.g., with Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive) may seem attractive at first glance, the true costs are often hidden. In particular, the fees for data retrieval (egress fees) can be unpredictably high for a large recovery, such as after a disaster or for an eDiscovery request, causing the TCO to skyrocket.

Beyond the pure numbers, tape offers another crucial advantage: financial predictability. The TCO of an on-premise tape library is highly predictable. It consists of the initial investment in hardware (CapEx) and minimal, fixed operating costs (OpEx) for media, power, and maintenance. In contrast, the TCO of cloud archive storage is inherently unpredictable and depends on future access patterns and the provider’s pricing policy. From the perspective of a CFO or risk manager, a tape solution protects the company from the “cost shock” of an unforeseen, large-scale data retrieval from the cloud.

Sustainability: Power Consumption and CO₂ Footprint

Ecological sustainability has become an important goal for many companies. Tape libraries offer a clear advantage. They represent by far the most environmentally friendly storage technology for large amounts of data. The reason is simple: tape cartridges only consume energy when they are actively being read from or written to in a drive. Most of the time, they rest powerlessly in the library’s magazine. Hard disk systems, on the other hand, must be permanently powered and actively cooled, even when no data is being accessed. Quantitative comparisons impressively prove this advantage: tape systems can reduce energy consumption by up to 97 percent and the associated CO₂ emissions by up to 87 percent compared to HDD-based systems. The manufacturing process of a plastic cartridge with magnetic tape is also significantly more resource-efficient than the production of a complex hard drive with motors, electronics, and rare earths. The choice of storage technology thus has a measurable impact on a company’s CO₂ footprint and can be a quantifiable contribution to achieving sustainability goals.

Risk and Compliance Aspects (Air-Gap, WORM, GDPR, ISO 27001)

The ability to minimize business risks is another cornerstone of the business case for tape. The physical separation from the network by removing a cartridge from the library creates a true, insurmountable air gap. This is the most effective defense against ransomware, as attackers simply cannot access the offline-stored data. Special WORM media guarantee that data is immutable after being written. It can neither be intentionally nor accidentally deleted or modified. This is a mandatory requirement for many legal regulations (e.g., SEC Rule 17a-4, HIPAA) and creates a legally sound, unchangeable audit trail that makes data integrity verifiable. Tape solutions support GDPR compliance by ensuring data integrity (Article 5), security of processing (Article 32) through encryption, and protection against unauthorized access. Within an ISO 27001 certified Information Security Management System (ISMS), an air-gap strategy with tapes directly supports the control measures from Annex A, particularly in the areas of backup (A.12.3) and physical security (A.11).

Typical Use Cases in Business Practice

The theoretical advantages of tape libraries are evident in concrete, practical use cases, ranging from fulfilling legal obligations to securing modern big data workflows.

Long-Term Archiving & Legal Retention

This is the classic and still most important use case for tape. Industries such as finance and healthcare, public administration, or the legal sector are subject to strict legal regulations that mandate the secure and immutable retention of business records, patient files, or transaction data for many years or even decades. The outstanding longevity of magnetic tapes, which can be 30 years or more with proper storage, combined with the extremely low cost per terabyte, makes tape the ideal solution for these large volumes of “store-and-forget” data.

Backup / Disaster Recovery Strategies (3-2-1-1-0 Rule)

For robust data backup, the 3-2-1 rule has long been established. In light of modern threats like ransomware, this has been enhanced to the 3-2-1-1-0 rule. It states:

• 3 copies of the data (one primary and two backups).

• 2 different media types (e.g., disk and tape).

• 1 copy stored offsite.

• 1 copy offline and immutable (air-gapped/immutable).

• 0 errors upon verification of recoverability.

In this modern strategy, tape plays a unique and central role. A single tape cartridge can meet three of these requirements simultaneously and cost-effectively: it represents a different medium than the primary hard drives, it can easily be stored offsite in a secure location, and in its offsite state, it is by definition offline and thus “air-gapped.” While a cloud copy can meet the offsite requirement, it does not offer a true physical air gap. Tape is therefore the cornerstone of a comprehensive and cyber-resilient 3-2-1-1-0 backup strategy.

Big Data & Media Workflows (Film, Research, Genomics)

Industries that generate vast amounts of unstructured data rely heavily on tape archives to manage their valuable digital assets cost-effectively.

• Media and Entertainment: Film and television production generate enormous amounts of data, from high-resolution raw footage in 4K or 8K to finished master files. Tape libraries are used here for the long-term archiving of these assets. The LTFS file system is particularly valuable in this area because it allows for simple, file-based access to the archived content without relying on complex backup software.

• Science and Research: In fields like genomics, climate research, or particle physics, petabytes of data from sequencing, simulations, and experiments are generated daily. This data often needs to be preserved for decades for future analysis. Tape libraries provide the necessary scalability and cost-efficiency to realize these “big data” archives.

• Internet of Things (IoT) and Video Surveillance: The archiving of sensor data from industrial plants or high-resolution video material from surveillance systems are also growing use cases for tape.

Cloud Connectivity & Hybrid Models (e.g., S3/Glacier Gateways)

Modern IT infrastructures are often hybrid, combining on-premise resources with cloud services. Tape libraries can be seamlessly integrated into such models. So-called S3-to-Tape gateways act as an intermediary, making an on-premise tape library appear as a cloud storage endpoint to applications. These gateways, offered by manufacturers like Spectra Logic in partnership with PoINT or directly by cloud providers like AWS (with the Storage Gateway in tape mode), translate the S3 API commands of the application into control commands for the tape library. This allows data from cloud-native applications to be written directly to cost-effective and secure on-premise tape. Effectively, you create an “On-Prem Glacier” that combines the full cost control and air-gap security of tape with the simple, standardized connectivity of the cloud API.

Planning and Sizing

Careful planning and sizing are key to a successful and economical implementation of a tape library. It must consider both current requirements and future data growth to avoid bad investments and ensure scalability.

Capacity Planning (Data Growth, Compression Rates)

The basis of any sizing is realistic capacity planning. Several factors must be considered:

• Current Data Volume and Growth Rate: Analyze the current volume of data to be backed up or archived. More importantly, forecast the annual data growth. Reports from existing backup systems can provide valuable historical data for this.

• Retention Periods: Legal or internal corporate retention policies determine how long data must be kept, thus directly influencing the total required capacity.

• Compression Rates: LTO manufacturers often advertise a compression rate of 2.5:1. However, this is just an average value. The actual compression rate depends heavily on the type of data. While text files or databases are highly compressible, already compressed data formats like video files (e.g., MP4), images (e.g., JPG), or ZIP archives can hardly be compressed further; here, the rate is close to 1:1. An analysis of your own data structure is therefore essential for accurate planning. The library’s monitoring tools can measure the actual compression rates achieved during operation and thus refine future planning.

Scaling Models: Entry, Mid-range, Enterprise Library

The market offers tape libraries in various size classes, tailored to different company sizes and requirements. The choice of the right model depends on capacity planning and performance requirements.

Table 2: Scaling Models for Tape Libraries

Interfaces & Protocols (Fibre Channel, SAS, Ethernet)

Connecting the tape drives to the backup servers is another important planning aspect. The most common interfaces are:

• Fibre Channel (FC): The de-facto standard in larger Storage Area Networks (SANs). FC offers high speeds (e.g., 16 Gbps or 32 Gbps), high reliability, and allows for the central connection of many servers to the library.
• Serial Attached SCSI (SAS): a more cost-effective alternative to FC, mostly used for the direct connection of one or a few servers to the library. Modern drives support SAS at 12 Gbps.
• Ethernet/iSCSI: Increasingly, manufacturers are also offering drives with direct 10-Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. This creates the possibility of integration into existing IP networks without the need for special FC or SAS Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) and can simplify the infrastructure.

Software Integration (Backup Suites, HSM, Object Archives)

A tape library is only as powerful as the software that controls it. Seamless and certified integration into the company’s backup software (e.g., Veeam, Commvault, Veritas NetBackup) is essential. It must be ensured that the software supports all necessary library functions such as hardware encryption, WORM, or partitioning. Sharing a library between different backup applications is technically complex and generally not recommended unless the library supports clean hardware partitioning, where exclusive slots and drives are assigned to each application.

Location, Climate, and Security Requirements

The physical environment of the tape library is crucial for its reliable operation and the longevity of the media. The data center should be located in a place protected from natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes. Proximity to potential hazards like airports or chemical plants should be avoided. Stable environmental conditions are required for the long-term storage of tapes. Temperatures between 16 and 25 degrees Celsius with a relative humidity of 20 to 50 percent are optimal. Strong fluctuations and condensation must be avoided at all costs. Access to the data center and the library itself must be strictly controlled. This requires a multi-level security concept with perimeter protection (fences), secured access points, video surveillance (CCTV), biometric controls, and a detailed log of all entries. Early fire detection (e.g., VESDA systems), a suitable gas suppression system, and an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with an emergency generator are essential for protecting valuable hardware and data. These measures are often part of certifications like ISO 27001.

Operation & Lifecycle Best Practices

Implementing a tape library is just the first step. Disciplined and process-driven operation is crucial to ensure the reliability, performance, and security of the system throughout its entire lifecycle.

Media and Lifecycle Management

Managing tape cartridges is a central operational task. Each cartridge must be labeled with a unique barcode. This is a prerequisite for the library’s robotics to identify the medium and for the backup software to manage it correctly in its database. Backup strategies like GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) define which tapes are used for daily, weekly, and monthly backups. The backup software manages these tapes in logical groups called media pools (e.g., “Daily Pool,” “Monthly Pool”). Dust and tape debris can contaminate the read/write heads of the drives and lead to errors. Therefore, the drives must be cleaned regularly with special cleaning cartridges (Universal Cleaning Cartridges, UCC). Modern libraries can automate this process by detecting when a drive needs cleaning and automatically loading a cleaning cartridge. For long-term data security, proper storage of the tapes is crucial. They should always be stored vertically in their protective cases to avoid deformation. Physical shocks, such as dropping a cartridge, can render the medium unusable. If tapes are transported between locations with different climatic conditions, an acclimatization period of at least 24 hours is required before use to prevent condensation. Even with optimal storage, the magnetic tape is subject to natural aging. To ensure data integrity over decades, it is recommended to periodically migrate the data to new media. A typical cycle for this “media refresh” is 7 to 15 years, depending on the criticality of the data.

Automation & Monitoring

Modern tape libraries are not isolated “black boxes” but can be deeply integrated into the data center’s monitoring systems. SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is the standard way to send status information (e.g., state of drives, robotics) and proactive alerts (SNMP Traps) to central monitoring platforms (e.g., Nagios, Zabbix). Increasingly, libraries also offer a REST API. This enables modern, script-based automation of administrative tasks that go beyond mere monitoring, such as triggering inventories or querying detailed usage statistics. Providers like HPE (Command View for Tape Libraries) or Quantum (iLayer) offer their own, often web-based management interfaces that provide detailed insights and diagnostic functions.

Performance Tuning

To achieve the maximum performance of a tape drive, a constant data stream (“streaming”) must be ensured. If the data flow is interrupted, the drive has to stop, rewind the tape, and accelerate again. This phenomenon, known as “shoe-shining,” drastically reduces the effective write performance. The following techniques help to avoid this:

• Multiplexing: Especially when backing up many slow source systems (e.g., over a 1 Gbit network), a single system cannot fully utilize the fast LTO drive. Multiplexing bundles the data streams from multiple parallel backup jobs and writes them interleaved onto a single tape. This keeps the drive continuously supplied with data and shortens the overall backup window. However, the multiplexing factor must be chosen carefully, as too high a factor can increase restore times because the data of a single job is scattered across the entire tape.

• Optimizing Buffers and Chunk Sizes: Adjusting parameters in the backup software, such as the size of data blocks (Chunk Size) and network buffers, can also help to create a smooth data stream and optimize performance.

Maintenance and Support Models

For business-critical backup infrastructures, a professional maintenance contract with the manufacturer or a specialized service provider like Hardwarewartung.com is indispensable. These contracts define Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that guarantee, for example, the replacement of defective components (drives, power supplies, robotics) on the next business day or even within four hours. Regular firmware updates for the library and drives are also part of the support and fix bugs, improve performance, and ensure compatibility with new media or software versions.

Market Overview

The market for tape storage is consolidated but technologically very dynamic. Four main players dominate the tape library market, each with its own strengths and product families.

Table 3: Market Overview of Leading Tape Library Manufacturers

Pricing

The pricing of tape libraries is typically modular and composed of several components, allowing for flexible adaptation to specific needs:

• Base Unit (Chassis): This is the basic housing of the library with the robotics and a base set of slots.
• Drives: Each tape drive is usually purchased and licensed separately. This allows a company to start with one drive and add more later to increase performance.
• Slot Licenses (Capacity-on-Demand): Many manufacturers, especially in the mid-range segment, follow a “pay-as-you-grow” model. The library is delivered with the full physical number of slots, but only a portion of them are enabled by software. Additional slots can be activated as needed by purchasing a license, without having to install new hardware.
• Software Licenses: Advanced functionalities such as library partitioning, extended analysis and reporting functions, or special encryption features can also incur additional license costs.

Introducing Tape Libraries

A successful introduction of a tape library requires a structured approach and the involvement of all relevant stakeholders.

1. Proof-of-Concept (PoC): Start with a small, clearly defined test to demonstrate technical feasibility and the basic benefits. Define clear goals and success criteria, e.g., the successful integration of the library into the existing backup software and achieving a certain write performance. A PoC validates the technology in your own environment without significant financial risk.

2. Pilot Project: After a successful PoC, the implementation follows in a limited but productive environment. Here, real backup and restore processes are tested, and the IT operations staff can gain practical experience and be trained.

3. Roll-out: Only after a successful pilot project does the company-wide implementation and the migration of productive backup and archive workloads to the new system take place.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the capacity of a modern tape library?

The capacity is extremely scalable, ranging from about 1 PB in small systems to over 2 EB (Exabyte) in the largest enterprise libraries, depending on the number of slots and the LTO generation used.

What are the main advantages of tape libraries?

The main advantages are the lowest cost per terabyte for long-term storage, high energy efficiency, media longevity of over 30 years, and unparalleled protection against ransomware through the physical air gap.

Isn’t tape much more expensive to purchase than cloud storage?

The initial investment (CapEx) for a tape library can be higher than starting with the cloud. However, over a period of 5-10 years, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of tape is often significantly lower because there are no unpredictable and high costs for data retrieval (egress fees).

How does a tape library specifically protect against ransomware?

By removing tape cartridges from the library and storing them offline in a secure location, they are physically disconnected from the network (air gap). Ransomware that spreads over the network cannot access this offsite data, neither to encrypt nor to delete it.

How long do magnetic tapes last?

When stored correctly under controlled climatic conditions, modern LTO tapes have a certified lifespan of 30 years or more, making them ideal for long-term archiving.

What is LTFS and why is it important?

LTFS (Linear Tape File System) is an open standard that allows a tape to be accessed like an external hard drive. This greatly simplifies data exchange and archiving because no special backup software is needed to read the data.

What does WORM mean and what is it needed for?

WORM stands for “Write Once, Read Many” and refers to a technology where data can be written to a special medium only once but read any number of times. This creates an immutable, legally compliant data record and is essential for meeting strict compliance regulations.

What is the 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule?

The 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule is a modern data protection strategy: Keep 3 copies of data on 2 different media, with 1 copy offsite and 1 copy offline (air-gapped), and ensure 0 errors in recovery through testing.

Is a tape library future-proof?

Yes, LTO technology has a clear and reliable roadmap that foresees capacity increases well into the 2030s. It serves as a proven and cost-effective bridging technology until future storage forms like DNA or glass storage reach market maturity.

What is a Virtual Tape Library (VTL)?

A VTL is a disk system that presents itself to the backup software as a physical tape library. It allows for faster backups and restores on disk without having to change the existing tape-oriented backup infrastructure, but it does not offer the air-gap advantage of real tape.