StarWind Software Inc. StarWind allows you to create Virtual Tape Devices and Tape Libraries based upon hard disk storage. A Virtual Tape Device is a
special hard drive file that’s made available to your network that is normally used for file backup and recovery proposes. By enabling virtualized hard drive space as a Tape Device, Backup Managers are able to integrate VTLs with existing backup software and current backup and recovery processes and procedures. It also enables the “backup to disk” functionality that many older backup software versions do not support. This prevents unnecessary and costly backup software upgrades. Starwinds VTL solution allows Backup Managers to store backup data on inexpensive PATA and SATA hard drive systems, instead of having to use expensive tapes and tape drive systems. And by backing up your data to disk instead of tapes, VTLs will most often increase performance for both backup and restore operations. Scalability is increased by using RAID array enclosures to host and store your VTLs, by allowing the addition of more hard drives and/or enclosures to increase overall storage capacity.
