What Does Tape Backup Mean?
Tape backup is a traditional backup procedure that uses magnetic tape or any tape cartridge as the storage device. Enormous amounts of data in the hard disk can be duplicated into the tape such that in the event of an unfortunate hard disk crash, the data can be restored. Although end users already prefer disk or online backup storage, tape backup continues to exist in large enterprises because of its archival stability.
Techopedia Explains Tape Backup
Tape backup started in the 1980s but was largely abandoned in favor of disk backup by the late 1990s because disks are faster and can store a lot more data. A tape drive uses a sequential access kind of storage. This means that groups of stored data are accessed in a prearranged and methodical sequence, making it hard to selectively find data that may be in the middle of the tape spool. Because it is only capable of this kind of storage access, tape drives lose in terms of searching time when compared to disk drives, which use random access storage methods. Random access storage accesses data at a random position in a sequence regardless of the sequence size. This makes it faster than sequential access.
