On-site tapes: Virtual Tape Library (Sepaton S2100-ES2)

Off-site tapes: IBM 3494 with 2 3590E1A drives

H. Milton Johnson
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Allen S. Rout
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 9:37 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] Tape Drive Choices: What, and why?

Hi, all.

I'm looking into what choices folks have made for their tape drives, and
why they picked what they did.  I'm really happy with what I've got, but
I figure that state is perpetuated by questioning it, rather than
settling in.


I'm running 3590s (on the way out) and 3592s.  The capacity is close to
the top per-cartridge (500G raw per cart), and the speed is quite good,
~80GB/s.

When we added the 1-gen 3592s a few years ago, seek speed was an
important difference between that and the then current LTO2; I
understand that LTO3 has made up some ground there but not all the way.

My drives are getting a duty cycle approaching 100%; there are very few
times of the day I don't have jobs waiting in line for them.  My SE is
kind of nervous about them; he says we're mean to them. :)

I am given to understand that this kind of treatment tears LTO3s apart;
they aren't designed for that kind of 24x7 usage.

In a nutshell, I love my 3592s, I run them constantly and have
essentially no maintenance issues with them.  I've got some of them in a
remote installation ~300 miles away, and run them with confidence, so
far borne out. (8 months of production)



So, any opinions?  Love stories for LTO3 or that sun whatever-1000 ?
Hate stories?



- Allen S. Rout