5 HBA's will cost quite a lot of money and then you have to add more
HBA's to your host if you want to add more drives in the future.

I don't think you'll have much trouble justifying a small switch (goes
in the back of the SL500 cabinet) with dual paths to the server versus 5
paths to the server...

-----Original Message-----
From: Legato NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT listserv.temple DOT edu]
On Behalf Of Ty Young
Sent: Thursday, 22 December 2005 1:55 AM
To: NETWORKER AT listserv.temple DOT edu
Subject: [Networker] benefit to including FC switch between server and
jukebox? ( ! SAN backup envir.)

All,

We have in mind a project to replace three disparate data zones with one
(a
consolidation in other words.)    Today the libraries are SCSI-attached
and
all bkups are done over IP.

I'm planning to use four (4) LTO3 drives (over FC) inside an STK SL500
library.    Are there benefits to going into a switch (i.e. Brocade
4100),
rather than directly hook the drives/robotics into the FC HBAs on the
server?    Note that we are not doing SAN backups, i.e. the switch does
not
see disks attached to other hosts.

TIA
-ty

Phillip T. ("Ty") Young, DMA
Manager, Data Center and Backup/Recovery Services Information Services
i2 Technologies, Inc.

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