Tale of the tape: deciphering data storage for SMB backup

Computer Technology Review, April, 2004 by Michael Nixon

Disk and tape storage technologies have been battling it out for total supremacy for years. If you read the headlines, the two probably appear to be mortal enemies, throwing blows for the heavy-weight title as if they were Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier. IT professionals, however, realized long ago that the disk vs. tape argument is moot and that the two technologies can coexist in harmonious storage environments without coming to fisticuffs.

The true fight for today's IT departments is deploying storage technologies that can deliver a return on investment by minimizing the risk of system outages and downtime costs. These costs, depending on which industry pundit is cited, can range from $25,000 to $250,000 per hour. Figures like this are pushing the sales of enterprise-class storage solutions that can cost upwards of $500,000. It's easy for Fortune 500 companies to justify that cost if it prevents a $2 million loss caused by an 8-hour data outage. But what if you're a small business whose annual revenues don't even reach $250,000, let alone the $2 million mark?

Small to mid-size businesses (SMBs) need to take a closer look at the special data storage needs of their market. They need to understand what factors are behind expanding data volumes and what tools are available to handle data storage needs now and into the future. Only then can they successfully plan a cost-effective data storage strategy.

Special Data Storage Needs of Small Businesses

The U.S. Commerce Department estimates that there are over 7 million small businesses in the United States. IT spending for these small businesses, according to AMI Partners, is outpacing enterprise-level spending by a factor of 3:1. Many vendors, however, haven't noticed the paradigm shift and are sticking to their one-size-fits-all disaster recovery solutions. This is alarming because the data storage needs of small businesses are just as important, on a functional basis, as those of large corporations. In fact, a University of Texas study showed that more than 50% of all small to mid-size businesses that lose their data in a disaster go out of business within two years of the disaster.

There is clearly a business-critical need for backing up data within the small business market. Before any backup operations occur, however, small businesses need to ask some pertinent questions to truly understand their storage needs.

* How much capacity do we need to back up?

* Which data needs to be saved?

* How long do we need to retain the saved data?

* How fast do we need to recover our backed up data?

* What will it cost if our data is lost or my system is down for an extended period of time?

When analyzing these factors, it is critical to note how the data is being used and how frequently it is accessed. These factors will help determine how quickly certain data needs to be restored and which files and data types are vital to business operations. Answering these questions will be instrumental in planning the appropriate backup strategy. With its proven track record, low cost and large storage capacities, it isn't surprising that the answers are pointing many small businesses to tape storage for data backup.

Factors Driving Demand for Tape in Small Business Environments

Capacity: The fact that data growth in the small business market is exploding has been well documented by industry sources. Yet many vendors still approach small businesses with solutions capable of storing up to 50TB of data or more. One small business owner detailed this exact situation and his befuddled reaction. At the end of the sales call, he flatly asked if the salesperson was on crack! Do you know how much 50TB is for a small business?

Exploding data growth to a small business translates to between 100GB to a couple of terabytes on the high side. This necessitates a smaller and much more compact solution where the priority lies in meeting budget restrictions and finding a form factor that fits neatly onto a desktop-not into an expensive data center.

The traditional backup hardware for small businesses is CDs, Zip drives or early generations of small capacity tape drives. Unfortunately, most modern computers come equipped with 20-40GB hard drives that can no longer be practically backed up by the traditional hardware. It just isn't practical to sit around and swap dozens of CDs for a single backup. Even a moderate 20GB capacity tape drive means swapping out a few cartridges per backup.

Modern tape drives with capacities of 50-100GB per cartridge can finish backup jobs with just one tape. Budget friendly formats like Sony's Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT) allow a business to start small and then scale to fit growing data storage needs.

Ease-of-Use: The reality of today's business environment-small or large-is that IT resources are either tight or completely non-existent. Companies are searching for solutions that minimize the need for IT specialists or that can be executed with their existing staff. Tape storage technologies are meeting these needs by simplifying the connectivity requirements for improved ease-of-use.