Tape Services

Backup Tape Restoration

GES offers backup tape restoration services for all tape types and software backup formats. We can perform our tape services work in-house or at your location, and we are constantly expanding our capabilities to restore the latest industry backup tapes and formats. In addition our scalability allows us to restore one tape up to thousands with very flexible time schedules.

Backup Tape Remediation, Cataloging and Content Determination

Tape Remediation is fairly new terminology, but it is not a new concept. Companies generally hold backup tapes beyond the defined data retention period because they either do not know the age/dates of the backup tapes or the content of the tapes. Holding these backup tapes opens up organizations to increased legal exposure in addition to increased storage costs. Tape remediation allows you to determine the relevant files on backup tapes, restore only those files needed, and recycle or destroy the backups tapes no longer needed.
We offer services to scan legacy backup tapes to determine backup dates, servers (such as an Exchange mail server), and files. We can then restore the relevant files, servers, or tapes, and either destroy or recycle the backup tapes.

Email Extraction/Conversion

GES offers email extraction/restoration and conversion processing services from any backup format or email system such as Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Notes, iPlanet, and much more. After extracting the emails, we can provide additional culling and deduplication services such as targeted custodians and/or timeframes, providing you with targeted and reduced data volumes for ingestion into all legal review tools.

Backup System Consolidation

GES can help you consolidate your existing tape backups as you migrate from older technologies. We offer services to deduplicate redundant data in addition to stacking multiple backup tapes onto to one higher capacity tape enabling you to reduce storage costs in addition to your data backup footprint.

Backup Tape Recovery

We offer both physical and logical tape data recovery services. Physical damage is actual damage to the tape such as cracks, twisted tape, or exposure to elements such as water. Logical damage is usually required when a tape has not been exposed to physical damage and it was backed up successfully, but you are unable to read/restore the entire tape or portions of the tape.

Data Destruction

The destruction of corporate data has arguably become as important, or even more important than backing up and archiving. Corporate data is subject to increasing tough regulations, and the risk of massive financial loss due to data getting in the wrong hands has become a major cause of concern. Corporations need to keep data for business continuity and regulatory reasons, but need to delete data that does not serve these requirements to reduce the risk of more expensive discovery costs if sued, and also to reduce the cost of data storage.

GES offers a full spectrum of solutions for both data destruction and media destruction, summarized as follows:

HDD (Hard Disk Drive) shredding on an individual basis or in bulk. We offer video evidence of destruction. Shredded material is recycled.
Backup tape shredding on an individual basis or in bulk. Also available with video evidence and providing full chain of custody for the media shredded

Recertified Media

We buy back your used backup tapes – LTO, DLTs, 3590s, etc.

Contact us today to learn more.

Additionally, we sell inexpensive and reliable recertified backup tape media. Great savings can be had by purchasing recertified media over new. The intended purpose for the media is used to determine whether it makes sense to purchase recertified media over new tape. The following are a list of questions that can be asked:

How many times will the tape be used? Modern day tape cartridges like LTO are certified to be used thousands of times with no failure. If you only need to write and read a small number of times, maybe recertified tapes are ideal. If tapes are being used to make duplicates that will not be returned to the scratch pool then this is a good example of when recertified media can save you a lot of money.

Have the recertified tapes been fully tested? Or are they just reinitialized? Some level of actual tape testing is advised, and ideally a test that runs the full length of the tape. We do not sell untested product!

What is the price savings over new tape media? Backup tape media is durable and the term “recertified” should never be viewed as “used”, nor be a distraction when considering whether or not to pay a lot more money for new media. The recertification process is rigorous and ensures that the media meet the same standards as new media, and comes with the same warranty.

Why pay more when you do not need to? It’s the same brands, same formats, same quality specifications, and same warranty. It just doesn’t make sense to pay full price when you don’t get anything extra for it.

Onsite Services

If you have data that cannot go offsite, we can also perform these services at your location. We offer onsite services for as few as a handful of tapes up to thousands of backup tapes.