Turnkey solutions don't require any in-house technical expertise or hardware purchase or setup. They can be used by anyone with an Internet connection. The client software is either downloaded from the service's Web site or from a CD that would need to be installed on each machine that requires backup. Data is transferred from the client's PC to the backup-service company's server via an Internet connection. These backup solutions can be purchased and used with little or no modification and managed by someone with moderate technical expertise.
Tape drives have the highest upfront hardware cost, but they offer the most storage space.
DVDs and CDs offer a lower upfront cost, but with considerably less storage capacity. DVDs and CDs are more appropriate for backing up important sets of files rather than an entire computer system. Generally, data compression doubles the native capacity. Compression also doubles the data transfer speed. There is a wide variety of magnetic tape technologies with different capacities and features, and new technologies are coming out all the time.