Tape Storage Remains a Top Priority
for UK Businesses According to New Survey commissioned Overland Storage
83% of UK businesses rely on tape storage today; 24%
plan to purchase more tape systems within the next year; cloud archiving not
seen as a threat to tape
Tape storage is still a key part of IT business strategy and
is used widely by most UK businesses according to a survey published today by
Overland Storage the trusted global provider of effortless data management and
data protection solutions across the data lifecycle.
The key finding from the survey of 1000 UK businesses
conducted by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by Overland Storage, was that the
vast majority (83%) still use tape storage systems to back up and protect their
business data.
Even with the adoption of disk-based storage solutions over
the past decade, tape clearly remains widely used as a key part of most
organizations’ data management and protection strategies:
- The most common use case for tape storage is off-site
backup (70%), a large proportion (61%) continues to rely on tape for on-site
backups
- 43% cited archiving as the third most popular use case,
while over a third (34%) have turned to tape based solutions to ensure
compliance with data retention regulations
- A large segment of respondents (28%) still utilise tape
for near-line storage
Disk storage solutions have, however, made significant inroads
over the years. Like-for-like onsite disk storage capacities have
surpassed those of tape, with the average enterprise managing 101TB of disk
storage compared to 67TB of tape storage. Despite this, the majority (54%)
of enterprises expect to invest in tape storage systems in the coming five
years, with almost a quarter (24%) expecting to purchase a tape system within
the 12 months.
When it came to data backup best practices and the frequency
of moving data to tape, ostensibly to free up disk storage, less than a third
(31%) confirmed it was done on a weekly basis. Although the majority (52%)
moved data across to tape within a month of it being created, a surprisingly
large 10% admitted to doing this only on an annual basis. Almost a quarter
(24%) of those surveyed lacked automated data movement tools and had to move
data to tape manually.
Archiving frequency best practice trends were slightly better.
Just under half (45%) archived old data on a weekly or better basis, rising to
over three-quarters (76%) who did so on a monthly basis. When asked ‘will
archiving to the cloud kill off tape’ a very small minority (8%) agreed.
Commenting on the survey findings Andy Walsky, VP EMEA Sales
at Overland Storage, said: “Tape storage systems have played, and will continue
to play, an integral part of the data management and protection strategy of UK
enterprises for many years. Tape continues to offer a significant
price/performance advantage over traditional disk-based solutions and remains
the choice for off-site backup and archiving. And, despite the buzz around
archiving to the cloud, tape will remain the premier archiving choice for many
years to come.”