BIOS: Technology Means Business

Not all tape-based backup solutions are the same. Tape, in general, is the smart-choice backup solution, particularly among small to medium businesses (SMBs). Yet rival tape formats, 15-year-old Digital Data Storage (DDS) and the new-comer VXA, have critical differences. Both originate in consumer technology and their beginnings are indicative of their evolution.

In 1987 my company adapted 8mm camcorder tapes for data storage and the EXB-8200 was born, marking the onset of unattended, or automated, backup. Two years later, Hewlett Packard and Sony created DDS from digital audio tape (DAT) technology, which was used for CD-quality audio recording.

DDS uses mechanical track-following technology, which writes data in a helical scan format and must be mechanically guided with extremely tight track tolerances for data to be restored. Drive variations, environmental conditions, device handling can cause loss of this control and jeopardise ability to restore data.

In 1995 Exabyte’s founders established Ecrix to develope VXA Packet Tape technology to solve these problems. The result was the award-winning VXA-2 PacketLoader 1x10 1U AutoLoader. VXA drives write data in small packets, in the same way as data is transferred over the Internet, making this format the most reliable at restoring data - at low cost.

Each packet has its own address so no longer depends on the mechanical alignment of a physical track. In addition, VXA’s variable speed control eliminates by-products of track-following technologies such as ‘back-hitching’ and ‘shoe-shining’. Traditionally, if the data transfer was too slow for a drive to stream data, a tape stopped and started.

VXA also offers an over-scan operation, during which its four heads simultaneously scan each packet multiple times to ensure data is consistently written to tape correctly. If an error is detected, the drive applies a four-level Reed-Solomon Error Correction Code (ECC), which results in a bit error-rate of 10-17. These properties make the VXA-320 Packet Tape Drive more than 180 times more likely to recover data.

Speed of transfer from the main storage disk, through the network to the backup tape is also important. VXA is the only tape-based backup technology to undergo independent tests including boiling, freezing, shaking, being left on a radiator and being dropped in hot coffee. Whatever the conditions, it still allowed 100 per cent of the data it held to be restored.

Manually changing and storing tapes has time and human error implications. The 15 minutes needed every day quickly adds up to around 52 hours a year, or nearly two working weeks. Fortunately, disk-to-tape storage can be automated too, including loading and archiving of tapes. An autoloader does the job and provides complete peace of mind.

An integrated barcode-reader assists archiving and tape retrieval by recognising each tape. Automation makes backup something SMBs cannot afford not to do. The saving in just one person’s time alone means automated back-up pays for itself in its first two years of use. While tape remains the most reliable and cost-effective means of protecting data, not all solutions are the same. The time evaluate the options is before implementation, not following a disaster.