Basic Question regarding tape drives

[lcw82]

Hi, I have a very basic question regarding tape drives, and would like to seek clarification here.

I understand that the tape drive can be made up of multiple drives, and multiple cartridges. May i know if all tape drive a permanet storage? Can we overwrite existing data?

Also, are the cartridges removable? Meaning when we archive data do we just remove the cartridge or we have to remove the whole tape drive?

Sorry for the noob question as I am pretty new to such technologies:)

[lcw82]

Sorry, one more question. I am looking at the Ultrium 1760 tape drive.

Do they come in 1U rack mount as well? Saw it in the specifications. http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12128_div/12128_div.html#Technical%20Specifications

Do they have a picture of how it looks like?

[Joshua Small_2]

I'm not sure about that specific model, but many HP tape drives come in a 2RU model.

Most basic setups involve a single tape drive. Otherwise it's called a "tape library" with two or more drives.

The cartridges are overwriteable. You can pretty much setup whatever works with your business. I suggest for example, having tapes labelled Monday Tuesday etc.. which are all over written each week.
Then have four different Friday tapes so you can restore data up to a month back if required.

If the idea of keeping a tape and not overwriting it appeals to you, consider that many companies do a monthly backup, after which they put that monthly tape in permanant locked storage. For legislative reasons, this means they end up with 12 tapes per year that just serve as a record of previous transactions.

[lcw82]

Hi, thanks for the clarification. So the cartridges are not removable? I thought that we could replace the disk drive and store the cartridges :)

[Joshua Small_2]

There's a confusion of terms.

The cartridges (tapes) are removeable, in that you can remove and rotate them (daily is recommended.

The phrase "disk drive" doesn't apply, as you have a tape drive. And you don't remove the tape drive from the tape drive. So no, you don't remove the disk drive.

Think of it as a beefed up CD-RW.
You buy a CD-RW drive. You insert CDs. You write to them. You remove the CDs and go on.

[lcw82]

Hey, thanks for the explaination. Certainly cleared my doubts.. So the cartridges are like the storage media, that we can keep and store..

Thanks:)