The best choice of media for partial backups is the type of disk that is most practical for the user. Floppy disks, Zip disks, or CD-ROMs all may be used to make copies of user files. When considering the making of total backups, important factors are cost, ease of use, reliability, and capacity. To decide how much capacity the backup system must have, figure out how much information is on the computer. Since everything on the computer fits on one tape cartridge backup, a recovery from a tape should proceed much more smoothly than it would on media of less capacity.
Tape backup requires the purchase of a tape drive and tape cartridges.
The drives can be installed in the computer like a disk drive or plugged into a parallel, USB, or SCSI port. These drives always come with backup software and instructions. Tape backups are in wide use, but, like anything else, they can fail, so users should practice due diligence by investigating the different brands and testing the system once it is installed. Imaging software is relatively inexpensive and easy to use. If imaging is used as a backup, the drive used as the backup should be at least the same size as the main drive.