>Christopher G. Stach II >There is little argument for tapes at all in modern backup systems unless you need archival storage and you have money to burn on media, time (backup/restore time as well as time lost during restore on the requesting side), staff, etc. We think of our 320G Quantum Sata DLT-4 tape drive as 'hot-swappable'. The tape is easily replaceable, without having to worry about bad connectors that can plague hot swap drive bay equipment. At $45 per tape for 320G of storage, it competes with hard drives. In case of tape drive failure, the tapes still work with the new drive. And with scsi or sata based tape drives, speed is not a problem. Combined with disk based network storage, tapes have a place in IT.