Tape is still the big dog, with cartridge sizes up to 800 GB and robotic libraries with multiple petabyte capacities, but its linear read and write times create poor performance from an RTO perspective. Disk is faster than tape, the cost of disk has plummeted, and there are more network storage options than ever thanks to the growing popularity of inexpensive, IP-based NAS and iSCSI SAN systems. It's an interesting irony: Tape technology has continued to thrive due to the need to protect data on disk, and now disk vendors are pitching disk as an alternative to tape. But, if you listen closely, few disk backup vendors are going so far as to recommend disk as a total replacement for tape under all circumstances.
For conventional backups, disk subsystems placed at appropriate points in the data path support caching of backup streams at much greater throughput than tape systems, allowing flexibility in managing backup windows and dramatically reducing restore times. But disk systems aren't relegated to a supporting role in the backup arena. Most major storage players--including the Big 6: Dell, EMC, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Network Appliance and Sun Microsystems--offer disk-based backup systems that can be tailored to meet various RPO and RTO requirements. The trade-off lies in how much spinning disk you can afford versus how much data you need to back up and the retention period you choose for data on disk.
Most data will end up on tape, and full-spectrum storage vendors like HP, IBM and Sun offer many tape libraries designed to integrate well with disk. In contrast, EMC offers the EMC/MTI File Management and Archiving Solution, a turnkey, tapeless system that combines primary storage with CAS (Content Addressed Storage) for long-term archiving.
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