More than any other products in the data center, tape libraries are under assault. Disk-to-disk backup and continuous data protection (CDP) products promise to reduce a company's reliance on tape backup. With all of the focus on eliminating tape, one would assume that users are unhappy with their tape products. But that assumption would be off-base considering the results of the Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine 2006 Quality Awards survey of tape library users.

Almost across the board, the 385 Storage readers who provided more than 500 product evaluations indicated a degree of satisfaction consistent with that of our disk array surveys (see "About the survey"). Users apparently have a high degree of brand loyalty, too, as only 9% of respondents say they own libraries from three or more vendors. User satisfaction is further confirmed by the fact that 80% of respondents say they would buy the same system again if they had to do it over. Indeed, that rate is higher than the typical 75% we've seen in other product categories.