HG> No they don't.  Just like music cassettes the magnetic information
HG> migrates between the rolled up tape layers.

If you're using digital quality tapes, not the old analog ones, their
formulation is different enough to where there's a substantial difference in
longetivity compared to the old ones.  The average tape life can be between
10-30 years depending on how often they're used.

See:
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub54/4life_expectancy.html

There's a reason why tapes are still being used in business, mainly as cold
backups.  They do use some tapes for warm and hot backups though, but
they're replaced fairly often.

HG> In this regard CDs and DVDs are better but they aren't perfect either.
HG> The silver platters are prone to destroy themselves with age if you
HG> don't know the quality of them.

The average life of a CD/DVD is two to five years.

See:
http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/initiatives/temp-opmedia-faq.html

HG> Only time will tell you the true quality of the platters so the only way
HG> to ensure that the data is reliable is to make new copies of them within
HG> their life expectancy. What that is, is unknown ;o)

It's all in what types of backups you're wanting to do also.  I've used
tapes primarily over the past 20 years with the BBS and I've really had good
experiences with them.  In fact, I'm being sent a DDS-4 external drive that
I'm working on putting into the BBS.

However, nitpicking aside, any good backup is better than no backup at all,
no matter what medium you use to back it up with!

--Sean



--- MBSE BBS v1.0.5.1 (GNU/Linux-i386)