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We replaced an STK L180 with an i500 about 15 months ago. We went from LTO2 to LTO5. Quantum let us "rent" an LTO3 drive which we used to copy all our long-retention images to the new media.
We looked at Spectra too. The Spectra came out a little more expensive and I thought their robot design with the terapacks was too complicated. That being said I haven't heard about any big problems with them. Spectra
also wasn't ready to release LTO5 at the time we were buying.
The i500 has been working out well for us. The robot's feed rate (how fast it will move tapes around the library & CAP) is not as fast as the STK units, but it gets the job done. The slowness is rarely noticed when
doing scheduled backups because we aren't standing there waiting on it.
Reliability on the i500 has been good. We had a loose ribbon cable on the robot carriage catch and stop it once that support fixed and believe triggered an engineering fix as well to properly fold and protect the
cable. Other than that a couple drives replaced that change out of the back pretty easy. We started out at the lowest service level because it is user-serviceable but got tired of waiting until the next day for parts and upgraded to 7x24x4 service.
Only one design flaw I can speak of. The drive-to-library communication channel is rather slow. I think it is a 9.6 kbps serial connection. The robot does not have its own fiber connection - it uses a separate LUN
on one of the tape drives - they call it the control path. This means the operation of inventorying the robot in NetBackup uses that slow link. The inventory is maintained on the library, but pulling the information using a drive. Another slow operation is
pulling a drive log for support. You access the library GUI over Ethernet, and it has to pull the log across that slow link from the drive so you can download it. Takes 20-30 minutes.
From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu [veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Ulises Rodriguez [ulises.rodriguez AT wallst DOT com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 11:33
To: 'veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu'
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Tape Library
Hello All,
I have the opportunity to take on the project of replacing our old Storagetek L700. The time has come to make a choice either T200 Spectralogic library or Quantum I500. I have been looking at everything as far as all the features/options.
I just haven’t talk to anyone using any of these in other shops. Vendors always want to visit and talk with their happy clients. Just looking forward to get a general idea on everyone’s experiences with these products.
Thanks in advance!
Uli
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