Is there still a place for the virtual tape library?

Today, a great number of different storage mediums exist whose purpose is to retain information in some manner. One of the oldest data storage mediums, the tape, is a linear storage system that still has great application with today’s revisions to this long standing technology.

Implementing tape storage within virtual storage infrastructure can be a great asset to a backup and recovery solution for many industries.

The tape storage system sequentially stores data on drives that utilise a magnet tape as a storage medium. The core design of tape has existed for many years but has been refined to operate more efficiently and reliably while sustaining the immense amount of information needed in today’s storage solutions.

Most of today’s tape drives resemble the form factor of a cassette tape rather than the big projector-like reels which slowly rotated in the computing labs, seen in early science fiction …