Hi

I don't believe that this will be a problem of PCI busses in most cases.

If the Windows server in question is not a Dedicated Storage Node,
- handling its own data only -
I expect the problems in delivering data over the LAN.
1x LTO3 has much more I/O power than a Gbit-NIC can flood.

Two or three NICs (or even more) (teamed or not) may soften
the problem, but then the new problem of CPU power will arise.
TCP/IP handling needs much much CPU cycles.
Even if you have enough bus bandwidth the CPU power becomes the next 
bottleneck. (This was the biggest problem at our side at least.)
Probably you can lessen the CPU pressure using more sophisticated TOE NICs.

So we have decided to split the NetWorker server in two physical machines,
one doing the all the nsr* stuff (managing indizes, nsrmmds, ...) and 
doing only slightly I/O with LTO1
and the second one (full blown Storage Node) feeding six LTO2 with all the 
LAN backups (>150 clients).
Both of the machines are modern HP somethings with 4 CPUs each and 2Gig 
RAM.
< biggest databases, etc. are configured as Ded.Storage Nodes >

At the moment we do not have plans to migrate to LTO3 and will stay with 
LTO2 for a while.
(LTO3, yes its big and fast, but TO FAST for our LAN backups.
 Sure it can write at lesser speed without shoeshining,
 but then LTO2 may fit as well and library slots are not the biggest
 concern nowadays)

Backup D2D2T could be a work around as well.

Just my 2ct.

Steffen Gattert; VISIOPLANT Hamburg

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