George> Just looking for some feedback here. We need to procure a new
George> tape library soon. We have an older Storagetek L80 with 8
George> LTO-3 drives (79 data slots). This has worked nicely, but I
George> don't see us upgrading it to LTO-4 drives, although it might
George> be possible.
You talk about staying with LTO-3 here...
George> Storagetek is still supporting it, but it is getting old, and
George> we'd like to get a new library to take us further down the
George> road. We will remain with LTO technology, so we plan to move
George> to LTO-4.
...but you say here you're going to LTO-4. My big concern would be
in terms of being able to push data fast enough at the drives to keep
them from shoe-shining. LTO-4 has a simply HUGE data rate.
Unless you stage to disk, then to tape, I don't think you'll be able
to make this work.
You might get away with fewer drives though.
George> I don't anticipate moving any of the existing LTO-3 drives to
George> the new library via drive conversion kits (I know this can be
George> done when working with the same library manufacturer). We will
George> run the L80 in parallel for a while, however. We're running
George> NW 7.2.2 on a Solaris server with two RH Linux snodes, but we
George> will move to 7.3.x at some point soon. Not sure if 7.2.2 even
George> supports LTO-4.
Can you get LTO-4 drives in the L80? That might be the cheaper route
really. I know you don't like it, but if the mechanicals are fine, it
might be the best route. Esp if you can have a mix of drives.
George> Desired library options:
George> o Rack mountable
George> o At least four LTO-4 drives with room to expand up to 8.
That's a lot of data to push, you'll need a Fiber Channel to each
drive.
George> o Fiber channel might be preferred but would be nice if it
George> could do SCSI if need be.
Why SCSI? I'd just go with a single LTO-4 drive per fibre
connection. Simpler and lets you spread the load around better.
George> o Will be connecting to RH Linux storage node server
George> o Ability to move tapes around using GUI panel would be nice
George> o A CAP door with 1-5 slots is preferred
George> I would prefer to avoid stackable type units. I pretty much
George> want it all in one. We had a bad experience with one stackable
George> style library wherein the company stopped manufacturing the
George> unit so we couldn't add more drives even though they still
George> support it for maintenance.
Details?
George> One thing I don't like about our L80 is that you can't move
George> tapes around in the library using the GUI panel on the
George> library. Instead, you have to use the OS. It's really more of
George> an annoyance than anything else. Otherwise, the L80 has been
George> great.
Why do you move tapes around? I'm curious. I could care less where
tapes are, and I tend to use the cap to load/remove tapes because I
find that a full re-inventory just takes more time and more hassle.
George> Not sure how many slots we would need, but given that LTO-4 is
George> double the capacity of LTO-3, I suppose we could get by with
George> 40 slots, but might be nice to have more.
More slots is always nice. :]
George> I know we will require another Authochanger license, and
George> that's gonna run some money, too!, not to mention the media,
George> but at least we'll be able to write to any new LTO-3 tapes
George> that we still have using the LTO-4 drives.
I would NOT write to older media on a newer drive. Read yes, write
no. It's just not worth the hassle, esp if you're keeping the old
server around.
Again, if you could put LTO-4 drives into your L80, you'll probably
save money since you won't need another jukebox license.
George> I'm tempted to stick with Storagetek since we've had a very
George> good experience with them, but I am open to suggestions.
I liked the ADIC i2k setup when I was at a past job three years ago.
Worked quite well for us, though with Veritas Netbackup. Currently I
have Quantum P4000s which once we went back to Fuji SDLT 320 media
have been fine. They're getting old, but still going strong.
The big issue is that we need (IMHO) to move to D2D2T from our
existing D2T setup with Netapps and NFS backups.
John
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