Disk Archiving: The Nail in Tape's Coffin?

Byte and Switch columnist George Crump is on tape's case. His thesis? That disk-based archiving is coming into its own, in the form of standalone products as well as homegrown white-box arrays equipped with archiving software.

Not long ago, disk-based products that performed data archiving separately from backup were relatively scarce. But thanks to data de-duplication, Crump says, that's changed. And in his view, it spells curtains for tape.

Crump argues that inline data de-duplication obviates the need to buy additional storage to support effective disk-based archiving. That is making disk more affordable as an archive -- something that users have been clamoring for, since tape can't effectively restore data items rapidly. And getting data back rapidly is key for companies with increasingly large sets of data saved for regulatory or legal purposes -- in other words, everybody.

It's one analyst's opinion, but it's based on some compelling assumptions. What do you think? Hit the message board, call us, or send us a message