Grandfather/father/son is a commonly used backup tape rotation scheme that uses three sets of tapes for daily, weekly and monthly backup sets. “Son” backups are done daily from Monday through Thursday; each daily tape is reused each week. “Father” backups are done once per week on Friday; each weekly tape is reused once per month. “Grandfather” backups are done on the last day of each month; each monthly tape may be reused quarterly.