Tapes are more than one tape. Generally, when one refers to 'tapes', one means audio cassette tapes. These are media which are capable of storing analog audio information at a reasonably high quality. One might also refer to backup tapes, used to digitally store big chunks of data which usually come from computers--See tar. Tapes vary very widely in their reliability and quality; if you're doing backup tapes you should probably spring for the highest quality you can get. This won't be too expensive; computer tapes tend to be cheap. Tape drives, though, can be wicked expensive. Oh well.