You also learn the ins and outs of a disaster recovery plan for your data. Selecting a Backup System You have to consider several things as you select a tape backup device. You need to inventory how much data you have to back up, find out the rate at which data increases, note the times at which the backup system is in use, and take into account the relative location in terms of bandwidth distance from the tape device. These factors play an important role in determining your backup needs. The location of data is an important consideration.
Location is used here in terms of bandwidth distance from the tape device.
If your tape device is internal to the machine that needs to be backed up, you can make use of the relatively large bandwidth of your subsystem. However, if most of your data is located remotely, you have to bring the data across the network, which means you have relatively small bandwidth to work with. Pulling large amounts of data across a network has serious implications for the available network bandwidth. Above all, do not even consider backing up over a WAN connection. Not only will you clog the pipe, the small amount of data you get into the computer controlling the tape device is not worth the trouble.