We've looked at the Sun/Storage SL-500 and the Quantum i500. Both are pretty
good, and either would be a reasonable choice for you. I can't say they're
better or worse than any of the alternatives; these are the only two we've
investigated. My perceptions of how they stack up against your requirements:
i500 SL-500
o Rack mountable Yes Yes
o At least four LTO-4 drives with room to expand up to 8. Both exp. to 18
o Fiber channel might be preferred Yes Yes
but would be nice if it could do SCSI if need be. Yes Not sure
o Will be connecting to RH Linux storage node server
(We didn't look at this but I can't imagine it'd be a problem)
o Ability to move tapes around using GUI panel would be Yes Optional
nice
o A CAP door with 1-5 slots is preferred Yes Yes
Both are modular to the extent that there's a base module with 1 or 2 drives
and expansion modules with up to four drives each. Each expansion module
adds CAP slots, although they can be configured as regular slots if you need
the space. As Consumer Reports would say, "fit and finish" appear to be good
with both. We haven't had any major problems.
One thing you want to look out for is the time required to reset or power on
the library. With only four drives it won't be a lot longer than what you're
used to with your L-80, but as you add drives the reset time grows. A fully
loaded 18-drive i500 has a power-on-to-ready time of over 20 minutes and a
similarly configured SL-500 takes about half an hour. When I complained
about this to the vendors they shrugged and said, "Don't power it off."
Good luck! Please let the list know what you decide on.
Conrad Macina
Pfizer, Inc.
On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 12:02:41 -0500, George Sinclair
<George.Sinclair AT NOAA DOT GOV> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Just looking for some feedback here. We need to procure a new tape
>library soon. We have an older Storagetek L80 with
>8 LTO-3 drives (79 data slots). This has worked nicely, but I don't see
>us upgrading it to LTO-4 drives, although it might be possible.
>Storagetek is still supporting it, but it is getting old, and we'd like
>to get a new library to take us further down the road. We will remain
>with LTO technology, so we plan to move to LTO-4. I don't anticipate
>moving any of the existing LTO-3 drives to the new library
>via drive conversion kits (I know this can be done when working with the
>same library manufacturer). We will run the L80 in parallel
>for a while, however. We're running NW 7.2.2 on a Solaris server with
>two RH Linux snodes, but we will move to 7.3.x at some point soon.
>Not sure if 7.2.2 even supports LTO-4.
>
>Desired library options:
>o Rack mountable
>o At least four LTO-4 drives with room to expand up to 8.
>o Fiber channel might be preferred but would be nice if it could do SCSI
>if need be.
>o Will be connecting to RH Linux storage node server
>o Ability to move tapes around using GUI panel would be nice
>o A CAP door with 1-5 slots is preferred
>
>I would prefer to avoid stackable type units. I pretty much want it all
>in one. We had a bad experience with one stackable style library wherein
>the company stopped manufacturing the unit so we couldn't add more
>drives even though they still support it for maintenance.
>
>One thing I don't like about our L80 is that you can't move tapes around
>in the library using the GUI panel on the library. Instead, you have to
>use the OS.
>It's really more of an annoyance than anything else. Otherwise, the L80
>has been great.
>
>Not sure how many slots we would need, but given that LTO-4 is double
>the capacity of LTO-3, I suppose we could get by with 40 slots, but might
>be nice to have more.
>
>I know we will require another Authochanger license, and that's gonna
>run some money, too!, not to mention the media, but at least we'll be able
>to write to any new LTO-3 tapes that we still have using the LTO-4 drives.
>
>I'm tempted to stick with Storagetek since we've had a very good
>experience with them, but I am open to suggestions.
>
>If anyone is using a newer STK library, I would be curious to learn what
>you're using.
>
>Thanks, and I would appreciate any advice or suggestions.
>
>George
>
>--
>George Sinclair - NOAA/NESDIS/National Oceanographic Data Center
>SSMC3 4th Floor Rm 4145 | Voice: (301) 713-3284 x210
>1315 East West Highway | Fax: (301) 713-3301
>Silver Spring, MD 20910-3282 | Web Site: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/
>- Any opinions expressed in this message are NOT those of the US Govt. -
>
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