I am a college student in a class for Information Storage and Management. In my reading, I found mention of Virtual Tape Libraries. I understand how simulating tape on disk is better than tape, but why stop there? Why not just put data on disk? What is the benefit of pretending it is tape?
that is a very good question.
every data center regularly backs up information in their servers. it may be a daily business or something a little less often. the data center will obviously need a lot of disks or tapes to store backup and since it is not a one time buy, we have to see if we can use any cheap alternatives. disks are more expensive than tapes and if you are using up terabytes of disks everyday, you can clearly see the mounting costs.
Considering the speed of backup a tape drive provides don't you think its pathetically slow? Maybe if we simulate it as you mentioned, but what do you intend to achieve at the end of the day? Clean backup? Reliable backup? or just backup for the sake of having it?
if speed is your only concern, you can always opt for flash drives. but even those are an expensive investment if you are looking to store the entire data center backup. you have to compromise on one factor or another.