Tape is cheaper than disk

The overall cost of tape data storage is significantly lower than disk according to recent studies conducted by the worlds largest LTO providers, HP, IBM and Quantum. The findings show lower cost per GB, lower operating costs and lower energy costs.

Two studies, from the Enterprise Strategy Group and The Clipper Group, evaluated the costs of long term storage which included tape-only and disk-only circumstances.

“The notion that ‘tape is dead’ ignores the substantial evidence that favours tape as a lower cost, environmentally friendly removable medium that is well suited for offline data protection as well as high growth compliance, fixed content and archiving applications,” said Senior Analyst Mark Peters who conducted the Enterprise Strategy study.

Nightly disk backups over five years were found to be 2-4 times more expensive than tape, while archiving over 12 years found disk to be 15 times more expensive than tape.

“These studies from leading figures further reinforce to the industry that tape is the optimal low cost storage medium for long term data retention,” said Rob Clark, Senior Vice President, Disk and Tape Backup Product Group, Quantum.

Read Ultrium’s full press release by clicking here.