Articles

How to Choose the Right External Tape Backup Device

Tape backup devices will always have a major advantage over any other removable media type: data capacity and cost. Although there are external hard disk drives which support larger capacities, no external hard drive can beat the price of a tape drive and extra tapes. Because of this, many people are still using tape backup technology to secure their backups. Of these tape backup devices, dlt tape backup with external tape backup devices are perhaps the most popular. This article will cover some of the more popular tape backup external interfaces, as well as their advantages and disadvantages.




Perhaps the oldest means of running an external tape backup drive is through a SCSI interface.  Traditionally a high-speed interface, SCSI offered the maximum in data transfer rates in its prime.  However, since the innovation of faster technologies, SCSI has fallen behind in data write speeds for external drives.  In addition, SCSI cards can be expensive, often ranging more than $80.  However, there are still a number of high quality external SCSI drives which can more than justify the extra cost.  If you already have a SCSI card in your computer or server, then it would make perfect sense to go with an external SCSI tape drive.

Another common means of external tape devices was to use the parallel port on a computer.  Although extremely slow, most computers have a parallel port, and can thus use this technology.  However, this is a dying technology (due to the poor transfer rates), and should be avoided if at all possible.  Since most new computers do not ship with parallel ports installed, this technology should completely die out within the next couple of years.

A recent newcomer on the market is the USB interface.  When you run a tape drive off of a USB interface, you will experience high data read and write speeds (all tape drives are slow compared to traditional media, however).  Since USB interfaces are standard on all computers manufactured since around 1998, you can be assured that the USB technology will not be a technology that is here today, and gone tomorrow.  The only disadvantage to the USB backup tape technology is that it is bus-based, which means that if you have several tape drives on the same USB port, it will likely result in very slow data read and write speeds.  A possible resolution to this is to use Firewire technology.

A Firewire interface is a non bus-based technology that results in high data read and write speeds.  If you are planning on installing several tape backup drives, Firewire may be a consideration worth keeping in mind.  The main disadvantage with this technology is the price of the tape drives.  Firewire based tape drives typically cost $100 more than USB based devices. 

Now that you know the differences between the major interfaces, you will be able to purchase an external tape drive for backup, intelligently, for example from with external colorado backup drives.  By planning ahead, you will be able to purchase a drive that is more than capable of lasting beyond the lifespan of the computer it will be attached to.






Backup Restoring Software :: Hard Disk Repair :: USB Data Storage :: Backup Automatic
Fix Hard Disk :: Back Up DVD :: Hard Drive Backup :: Web Data Storage

Home :: Backup Online :: Backup Image :: Backup Computer :: Backup Tapes
DVD Backup :: Data Recover :: External Backup Devices :: SAN :: NAS :: Disk Mirroring
Site Map :: Articles :: Blog :: Contact Us :: Link to Us :: Links