This topic describes the advantages and limitations of using tape
for storage. It makes some recommendations about when tape is a good choice
and when you should consider other media. It also provides planning, setup,
management, and troubleshooting information for stand-alone tape devices and
tape libraries.
Tape is probably the most common form of removable storage media for the iSeries™.
It has been around for some time, so it has been widely adopted and continues
to be popular.
Tape provides several advantages over other storage methods, including
the following:
- Cost. Tape is cost effective, when compared to
disk. While the cost of disk storage is falling, the cost of tape is also
falling on a per-gigabyte basis.
- Security. It is easy to keep your data secure by
securely storing backups or copies at an off-site location. This also guards
against on-site data corruption from viruses, fire, natural disasters, accidental
deletions, and other data-loss incidents.
- Reusable. You can rotate your tapes for backups,
which means that you have more than one set of tapes. When one set expires,
you can write over the data on it and use the media again.
- Capacity. As the amount of data you create grows,
you can increase your capacity by simply adding additional tape volumes.
While there are many advantages to using tape, there are also some drawbacks:
- Durability. Tape is reusable, but tapes do wear
out over time and require replacement. If they are not replaced when needed,
your data can be compromised.
- Sequential access to data. Tapes give you access
to the data on them in the order in which that data was recorded. If you are
looking for a particular item on a tape, it might take some time to locate
it.
The following topics provide information for single tape drives, tape autoloaders,
tape libraries, and cartridges. You can use this information to plan for,
set up, use, maintain, and troubleshoot a tape solution.
Concept and planning
- Types of tape solutions
- Comparison of offline storage
- Plan for a tape solution
Installing and configuring
- Install stand-alone tape devices
- Install tape libraries
- Configure tape libraries
Use and maintenance
- Use tape devices
- Maintain tape resources
- Example: Manage tape resources in a tape library
Troubleshooting
- Verify that your tape unit works correctly
- Collect library information for problem analysis
- Problem handling for tape libraries
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