The choice to use tape or disk really depends on to how quickly you need to access the data. Would using tiered storage meet the needs of your business? Are you prepared to spend money to keep disks spinning? In most instances would tape be the best option for both backup and archive?

	Tape	Raid
	For files that are seldom used, large (and growing) data sets = Backup & Archive	For files that are in use or as production critical fail-over = Online Storage & Data Availability
Throughput (max.)	250MB/s (LTO4) compressed	50-250MB/s (LTO4) uncompressed
Access	very slow	very fast
Energy consumption	very low	high
Durability	very high 15-30 years	medium 5-10 years
Disaster prevention	easy, off-site storage	difficult, external facility
Cost per TB	very low	medium
Scalability	very easy	medium

• Security: tapes are safe against malware, electric shock, and accidental user action while not in drive.
• LTO Tapes and drives are backwards compatible (read 2 generations, write 1 generation).
• Present LTO4 tape 800GB net capacity;  LTO5 tape 1,6TB net capacity +50%speed.
• NB2: a long term tape archive can pay for itself after about 2 yrs considering energy, integration, network hardware and admin time.