This IDC study, which is a translation of the Japanese report, IDC #J8120108, presents the performance of the Japan tape drive and tape automation market from 2005 to 2007 and related forecasts from 2008 to 2012. The performances and forecasts were analyzed in terms of revenue and shipment. The tape drive market shipments were also analyzed and forecasted by capacity while the tape automation market shipments were analyzed and forecasted in terms of number of cartridges. Tape technologies include half-inch cartridges (e.g., 3480/3490, 3590, 3592, TS1120, and 9840/9940/T1,0000), linear tape open (LTO) drives, digital linear tape (DLT)/super digital linear tape (SDLT) drives, 8mm tape drives, Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT)/SAIT drives, digital data storage (DDS)/digital audio tape (DAT) drives, scalable linear recording (SLR) tape drives, Travan tape drives, DLT-1 drives, and VXA tape drives.

"Japan companies are increasingly using disk-to-disk backup systems to reduce backup/restoration periods while they opt for tape storage for disaster recovery (DR) and long-term storage purposes. The coexistence between tape and disk storage devices is increasing as tape storage devices change their market positioning," says Ayuchi Takamatsu, research analyst, Storage Systems Research, IDC Japan.