Warning - compared to tape (and DASD, and about anything else), Optical is
SLOW!  Painfully slow.  Excruciatingly slow (getting the idea?).  And the
volume sizes are a bit small (5.2GB, vrs 60GB on a 3590J tape).

Optical has the advantage of very fast mounts and seeks.  If you are
providing HSM for any customers, Optical is the ideal place to store it, as
your retrieves will be fast.

I'm a packrat (see my box of 5.25" 1.2MB floppies, still in the
shrink-wrap?), so I'd take them.  The one thing is not to let the clients
write directly to them - the speed thing.  Migration times from DASD will
be long, but you'd be saving cycles on your tape drives, so that would pay
off.

One last note to remember - each library is its own storage pool, so you'll
have to have some intelligent management setup to utilize all 4 of the
3995's.

Nick Cassimatis
nickpc AT us.ibm DOT com

Today is the tomorrow of yesterday.




                    "Denis
                    L'Huillier"           To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
                    <dlhuillier@PER       cc:
                    SHING.COM>            Subject:     Optical vs. Tape
                    Sent by: "ADSM:
                    Dist Stor
                    Manager"
                    <ADSM-L AT VM DOT MARI
                    ST.EDU>


                    01/16/2002
                    12:53 PM
                    Please respond
                    to "ADSM: Dist
                    Stor Manager"





Does anybody have any input as to what the benefits of Optical vs. Tape
are?
I currently have 4 3494's with 3590E's and K tapes.
I was offered the use of 4 3995's that were being used on the Mainframe for
an application which has been retired.
Do I want them?
I am currently working on an Archive solution- could these be beneficial?
Pros / Cons ?
Thanks.

Regards,

Denis L. L'Huiller
973-360-7739
dlhuillier AT pershing DOT com
Enterprise Storage Forms ->
http://admpwb01/misc/misc/storage_forms_main.html