On Thu, May 10, 2007 at 08:59:40AM +0700, Olivier Nicole wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am considering replacement for my Amanda server, the guy has been in
> production for about 6 years now and I want to be ready for the time
> when the tape drive will die.
> 
...
> 
> Could anyone advise on some disk tray solution that is stong and
> reliable and will handle a lot of manipulation. idealy I wouldbe
> looking at one tray bay and 5 or 6 trays for the disks.

This is not a recommendation, only an info point.
There is one company, I think Iomega who made the zip drives,
who has a cartridge format that came out about 3 yrs ago.
In their product line is a 10 cartridge changer, much like
a tape library.

One concern I've had with vtapes is the loss of a harddrive
could mean the loss of ALL your backups where the lost of
a tape means the loss of a single backup and the loss of
a drive/library means the loss of zero data.

When I set up my vtape solution I chose to have several
harddrives with my vtapes spread across them, a few on
one drive, the next group on the next drive, etc.  My
slots directory is symlinks to the actual vtapes.

As I chose to use external usb drives, and the ones I got
power down when not in use, most consume little energy
for days on end.  I only used 3 large drives.  Perhaps
you might consider a large collection of smaller drives
and a substantial usb hub to connect them.

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
 4455 Province Line Road        (609) 252-0159
 Princeton, NJ  08540-4322      (609) 683-7220 (fax)