On Tue, 13 May 2003, Quarantine wrote:

> I wouldn't say that.  If you have a very narrow backup window and a
> lot of data, you should definitely consider STK.  There are *many*
> more considerations other than write time.

I think it does depend on precisely what your time and money constraints
are.  LTO-2 supposedly does 35MB/s native vs the 19MB/s of 9840 and the
30MB/s of 9940.  So far, in my experiences with IBM's tape gear (3590
and LTO-1), I've found them to always be truthful about their drives'
performance, but I've yet to get an LTO-2 in hand.  Others might be able
to comment on their experience with it.

For high volume users, $/GB can become a very important issue.  I'm
getting LTO-1 stock at around $0.65/GB which is a lot better than
the $2.00+/GB for the DTF-1 tapes my company had been using.  I expect
that number to drop as LTO-2 becomes a more widely available.

To address the original poster's question, in addition to looking at
9940 and 9840, AIT-3 would be worth looking at.  There's also S-AIT,
which could be interesting (whenever it comes to market).

-brian.