Tape Drives

Tape Drive generally refers to a single drive product, usually consisting of a tape drive and tape, and is an economical, reliable, high capacity, fast backup device. This product uses high error correction coding technology and write-after-read channel technology, which can greatly improve the reliability of data backup. According to the different loading methods, it is generally divided into manual tape loading and automatic tape loading, that is, automatic tape loading.

Tape autoloaders are actually a combination of tape and tape drives. An autoloader is a tape drive and automatic tape changer in a stand-alone machine that can pick up a tape from a magazine loaded with multiple tapes and place it in a drive, or perform the reverse process. It can back up 100GB-200GB or more data. Autoloaders can support routine backup processes and automatically load new tapes for daily backup jobs. A small company with a workgroup server can use an autoloader to automate backups.

Currently, there are many vendors providing tape drives. IT vendors include HP, IBM, and Exabyte. All other professional storage vendors such as StorageTek, ADIC, Spectra Logic and others use tape drives. Tape libraries are mainly push products.