TABLE OF CONTENTS Magnetic disks are not the only way to store digital media assets. There are many reasons why disk may not be appropriate. First, there may be far too many assets to store on disk arrays. This is highly likely if you are managing video assets. Second, it is astute to keep offline backups of the assets, for security against system failure or to cope with disasters like fire, earthquake, or theft. The third reason is that a permanent archive may be required for business reasons or because legislation requires it. Many industries are obliged to keep permanent records of all files.
Although the price of disk storage is ever falling, there are limits to the size of a disk array. The main alternatives for backup and archives are magnetic tape and optical disks. These can be kept near online in robotic libraries or stored offline on shelves in conventional libraries or vaults.
Tape is the traditional data storage medium. Until the development of magnetic disks, tape was the primary storage, but now it has become the main choice for secondary storage: for backup and archiving. Just like the hard drive, IBM pioneered much of the development, but now many vendors are actively marketing tape solutions. Several families of tape drive have emerged. AIT, DLT, and LTO are three of the leading formats. There are several others formats, but they are more suited to small system backup and have neither the performance nor the capacity for the demands...
