I am interested in the answer to this also. We're looking at an upgrade
of our current system, Have now a Storagetek library with 8 DLT7000
drives connected through 4 scsi connections to a Sun E3500, 4 400 MHz
processors, 4 gig memory. The cpu and memory on it don't seem to be
stressed at all. 

I am adding a 6-drive lto library with two drives dedicated to a direct
ndmp backup for a netapp filer. The other 4 will be connecting through a
brocade switch to a Windows 2000 media server. 
What the local Veritas tech says is that for each high speed drive
(meaning the lto's not the dlt7000's) I need a 2ghz processor, for 4 lto
drives I would need either a 4cpu machine or two 3cpu machines. 
With two media servers, and 2 lto drives on each one, I should be able
to transfer 4 of the dlt7000 drives to each media server also. Thus each
media server, with 2 - 2ghz processors each, can control 2 lto drives
and 4 dlt7000 drives. The sun box can be a master server for everything,
or I can translate the master server to a single cpu 2 ghz Intel
platform and sell the sun box on Ebay. (not my choice, but my manager is
windows centric). 
This situation seems comparable to what you are describing in your
original message. If anyone else can suggest whether all this seems
right, I'd appreciate it. 
Bob Grabbe
Dominos Pizza LLC
grabbeb AT dominos DOT com

>>> "Mike Day" <MDay AT qrs DOT com> 2/14/03 3:57:57 PM >>>
Can anyone give me some advice on whether a media server separate from
the
master server will give better performance in an environment if there
is
only one large library?  Or will one master/media server suffice?
 
Also another question ... If I'm going to do multiplexing say about
5-10 per
drive on some LTO drives (can I do more?).  Will a dual CPU server with
2 -
2.8 GHz's w/512 cache and about 6-8 gig RAM suffice or would you
recommend
going to a Zeon server with 2 - GHz's w/2 meg cache and about the same
RAM
for the option to upgrade to 4 processors later if necessary?
 
The key reason I'm asking this is because my current server that drives
a
library with 6 DLT 7000's runs on a Compaq ML370 with 2 - 733 Mhz CPUs
that
are pegged during the backup window because I'm multiplexing 3 jobs
per
drive.  If I only get a dual processor server it will not be as easy
to
upgrade.
 
Mike