HBA and LTO5 performance design

[itdrew]

I am looking at a project to expand a library by adding slots, and 8 – 10 LTO5 tape drives. I am having a little trouble finding information that will explain what is a best practice when adding tape devices to HBAs.

Basically I’d like to know how many LTO5 drives I can connect to either a 4 Gbps switch, or to an 8 Gbps switch. The HBAs are all 8Gbps, but we are limited on the 8 Gbps ports. We have more 4 Gbps ports available on the switch.

How much data can I realistically push through the HBA, and how much can I realistically write to LTO5 drives. I am looking for best performance at the moment.

Any advice is much appreciated.

 

[moon-buddy]

For 8 GB switches with 8 GB HBAs, you can try 4 tape drives and see if the performance is bad and adjust as needed.

For 4 GB, 2 tape drives is the limit that I have found to be acceptable.

 

[itdrew]

Moon-buddy, I am on the same page. I am provisioning 4 LTO5 drives per 8Gbps HBA, assuming 2:1 compression. I appreciate your feedback.