How you do that depends on your organization's needs. With my previous 
NetWorker server and tape library, we did fibre channel of the drives to a 
small SAN switch, but I could never get the fibre channel link for the robot to 
work unless it was plugged directly into the NetWorker server. In our current 
hardware configuration, locally connected tape drives are not an option because 
my NetWorker server is located in a different building than its tape library, 
so fibre channel via a switch is our only option. If you can get away with 
direct connections between your tape drives and your NetWorker server, the big 
benefit is that you have a simpler configuration with fewer points of failure.

On Feb 8, 2013, at 6:49 AM, Andy Williams <Andy.Williams AT IPO.GOV DOT UK> 
wrote:

> Hi Guys
> 
> How are people connecting their fibre attached drives, directly to the hba's 
> on the host or via fibre switches?
> 
> Seems to be either way is acceptable, just looking for real life experience!
> Host will have dual  8Gig connect to the san fibre  as well as two other dual 
> hbas that could be used to directly connect the drives.