Derek Dongray (3/26/2009)
Tapes are simple and compact. I haven't looked recently, but 40Gb tapes were available 5 years ago.DVDs can't match the storage (haven't checked Blu-Ray, but the technologies a bit new for general use).
Removable hard disks can match or execeed the storage but come with a mass of sensitive electronics built into the media which could fail.
Hence tape is still the backup medium of choice in most situations.
300 GB HD were available 5 years ago (and bigger). Tape not sensitive?! Very funny. And do you enjoy the time spent backing up to or restoring from tape?
The speed and capacity of hard disk far outweighs any argument tape can propose. Lets see someone pull off a backup to a mirrored set of tapes... yes, it can be done, but whoa... Electromagnetic interferrence will smoke a tape much easier than a disk.
Championing tape in this day is like saying we should go back to 486 DX4 100MHZ PCs.