Defunct tape formats may make data inaccessible

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 13 September 2007 10:45

Business IT - Technology

Offering advice that is likely to reduce the need for its services, Ontrack Data Recovery is warning organisations that retaining data on outdated tape formats can lead to it becoming unrecoverable.

Even if a business has kept in operation drives capable of handling the old formats, data on media that has aged badly or suffered mechanical damage may be difficult or impossible to recover, even with the aid of specialised equipment.

"Requests for archived information can range from internal documents, to a single email or even entire company backups. It is important to know exactly where this information is held and how to get to it," said Adrian Briscoe, Ontrack's general manager.

"Data is increasingly being stored in electronic format and we have seen an exponential increase in recovery requests in the last 20 years. Companies need to ensure that their houses are in order and everything is backed up properly."

One advantage of modern automated tape libraries is that they simplify the task of transferring old files onto new types of media when drives are refreshed.

Many IT professionals and personal computer users are likely to have experienced the problems that arise when files are not transferred to successive new types of media. For example, data originally stored on 5.25in floppies on an early PC is practically unreadable on most current systems. If it had been migrated to 3.5in floppies during the 1980s while systems often had both types of drive, it would be a different story. Ideally, it would have subsequently migrated to CD as soon as floppyless systems started to become commonplace.

Similar considerations apply to tape. Finding someone with the ability to read obsolete media can be time consuming and expensive, although user groups with an interest in old equipment or collectors of vintage computers may be able to assist.

Having the hardware to read the media is only one part of the problem. Unless data is stored in a long-lived standard format, it may just as well be physically unreadable. Resaving files from new versions of the software used can help keep it accessible, though 100 percent compatibility is not assured.