Tape and Cartridges

It is not clear how many users have tape streamers attached to their PC, probably not many in the home.

At one time Tape, then Cartridge, were used extensively for archiving including Disaster Recovery copies.

Over time cartridge use was so extensive that Silos, with Robotic Arms were installed to remove the human delay in locating and mounting the cartridge. This is the concept behind the Automatic Tape Library (ATL) illustrated opposite.

Cartridge use is declining these days as although they can be useful for meeting the requirements of data retention for Legal or Audit purposes, many installations now take Disaster Recovery copies, disk to disk, directly over fibre networks.