Tape Drive - Data Storage Device

What is a tape drive?  We often get asked that question. Very simply put a tape drive is a storage device for data and is sometimes called a streamer. The data itself is stored on magnetic tape which the device can write and read to.

Tape drives are different from random-access data devices as access is only sequential.  There are many ways in which tape drive backup devices can be attached to a computer  the most common of which is SCSI. Nowadays people also use USB or fibre channel. The reason tape drives are so popular is the amount of data storage they can handle which ranges from just a few megabytes to in excess of 900 GB.

The other great feature of tape drives is the level of security they offer and the fact the media is portable and can easily be stored in a secure backup location. Compression ratios achievable on drives today also means that the data can be stored more efficiently.  Raw storage capacity of tape drives is called native capacity.

For fully automated backup solutions tape libraries and autoloaders are used with the tape drives inside them which means that multiple tapes can be accessed through archived solutions and capacity can be increased. Most tape drives now have variable speed levels with implemented algorithms which can match the computer data rate dynamically when backing up data.