Z-datdump: Free And Reliable Tape Backup Software

By Author: Andreas Baumann
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Most users save their data to self-burned CDs or DVDs. Alternatively, they use external hard drives or removable drives. For very large amounts of data, however, these methods quickly reach their limits. A real alternative is the software Z-DATdump. Key feature: Z-DATdump writes all pending data easily to any tape drive.

Once a computer user sums up how much space she needs to back up her most important files, she will be surprised about the quantities that quickly arise. A CD or DVD does not suffice. In a professional environment, even external hard drives will quickly come to their limits. And the whole affair will get even more unwieldy once the user wants to keep different versions of the backups. Theoretically, that would mean that she has to handle half a dozen hard drives.

It is much cheaper and easier to utilize tape drives right from the beginning. This tape backup method is extremely secure and uncomplicated because it has been in use for more than 30 years and was optimized over the time.

There is a variety of different tape drives available. Depending on the tape model and the technology ...
... it uses, one single tape can store between 4 gigabytes and 1.6 terabytes. The tapes are very small, so that several tapes can easily fit in a desk drawer.

Z-DATdump: Tape backup software for direct data transfer from the computer to the tape drive

The question is: How can the data be copied to tape? The company IMU Hard- and software service offers the suitable software for windows: Z-DATdump (link: http://www.z-datdump.com ) which is very easy and free to use and can copy complete directories to tape. It supports SCSI, IDE and USB tape drives of these kinds: TRAVAN, SLR, MLR, QIC, LTO, AIT, DLT, DAT, and DDS.

It allows to create five backup file lists, for each of which the user can specify which files and directories to include in the backup and if the data should be compressed (if the tape drive supports compression). The program creates 1:1 file copies.

All features of Z-DATdump can also be accessed via command-line parameters, which allows for inclusion of the program in your own batch files, scripts, or other programs, or to schedule backups using the Windows built-in task scheduler or our own scheduling tool Z-Cron, with which you can fully automate tape backups and all other tasks on your computer.