Vint,

I just looked at this question myself, and it seems to me that optical devices 
are not yet mature enough.  For my application, which has relatively small 
amounts of data, tape with a second copy and appropriate refreshing of old 
tapes will be cheap and convenirnt.  It also provides relatively easy migration 
to newer tape types as they become available.

I'[ve decided to review this again in 2 years or when the tape usage starts to 
get unreasonable.

Regards

Steve Harris
AIX and TSM Admin,
Queensland Health, Brisbane Australia 

>>> Vint Maggs <vint.maggs AT SRS DOT GOV> 30/10/2001 0:46:29 >>>
Hello All,
        I have been given the task of evaluating whether or not TSM is the
appropriate vehicle for long term archiving.  As part of this process I
plan on installing the latest version of TSM on Solaris 8.  I am
interested in which type of optical drive you may be using.  I will not be
testing optical libraries, just a drive.  I have reviewed the list of
supported devices and I am surprised by the lack of support beyond a few
(4) manufacturers. I was thinking of using the Plextor 12/10/32S External
SCSI CD-RW drive but it is not supported.
        As part of the testing I was planning on determining whether or
not  the data I write using TSM requires a TSM server or client to
recover. Obviously if the data has to be retained for any great length of
time I would prefer to avoid any proprietary formats.
        If you have a TSM/Solaris environment with Optical devices, I am
interested in hearing your experiences.

Thanks,
Vint



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