Veritas-bu

Re: [Veritas-bu] Robot inquiry/poll/how well does your robot/s work?

2011-12-01 17:44:35
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Robot inquiry/poll/how well does your robot/s work?
From: "Justin Piszcz" <jpiszcz AT lucidpixels DOT com>
To: "'Lightner, Jeff'" <JLightner AT water DOT com>, <veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu>
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 17:44:26 -0500
Hi,

Thanks to all that replied-- this is very helpful.

Justin.

-----Original Message-----
From: Justin Piszcz [mailto:jpiszcz AT lucidpixels DOT com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 10:16 AM
To: 'Lightner, Jeff'; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Robot inquiry/poll/how well does your robot/s
work?

Hi,

So far what I've received 1 e-mail off-list and this one:

Quotes = Paraphrasing.

ADIC - (bought by Quantum, see Quantum)
Dell - "DELL PV136T robots seemed to have a lot of problems"
HP/ESL9595s - Seemed to lockup a lot and throw tapes on the floor, suffice
to say these aren't sold anymore, this was 10+ years ago.
HP/MSL6000s - Smaller robots worked very well, very minor/no issues at all
but they only held 30-60 tapes or so..
HP - Any G3 owners here?
IBM TS2900 - "Has crashed a couple of times"
IBM 3584 (now TS3500) - "Only a couple of errors since 2005-2006, very
stable robot."
Spectra Logic - Any takers?
STK/SL500 - Have had a lot of fun with caps and loading/unloading tapes,
make sure you test when you install one of these units, often there can be
parts of plastic that are not cut properly so there can be cap errors,
related issues.  For the most part, they work fine; however, a lot more
maintenance goes into maintaining lots of smaller robots and the cost of
SL500s price per slot (compared to larger ones) is high but it fits into a
standard rack.
STK/L700s - I find that the type of drives can also seem to impact how well
the robot works, in terms of tapes getting stuck, also different drives can
use different bezel designs, this can also affect reliability.  I've used
L700s at a some companies and find these (when paired with IBM LTO-4 drives)
the robot itself is typically very reliable; however, with HP + LTO-2 that
was not the case, lots of errors, robot lockups etc.  Then there is the
redundancy issue, they  have two PSU's, the robot itself will stay online(?)
but you will lose 1/2 the tape drives, not an issue though if you have
good/reliable power.
STK/SL8500s - Redundant, reliable all around best STK/Sun/Oracle option for
enterprises, SL500 otherwise.  SL3000s are nice as well (haven't seen one up
close) but they are not nearly as redundant as  an SL8500 and cost around
the same when fully expanded.
STK/Sun/Oracle - Curious of others' reviews of the robots mentioned above.
Qualstar - "Possible issues with new robots but once the root problem is
fixed, no further issues."
Quantum - Scalar i6000 " almost no issues with the robot itself, minor issue
with cleaning tapes."

This is great info, only ones that are left are the HP G3 series (similar to
HP ESL9595s) and Spectra Logic series of robots.  Anyone out there using
those/or have comments on what I have written?  Are there any manufacturers
I have missed?

Justin.

-----Original Message-----
From: Lightner, Jeff [mailto:JLightner AT water DOT com] 
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 9:34 AM
To: Justin Piszcz; veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Robot inquiry/poll/how well does your robot/s
work?

At various jobs I ran the STK L700 (either as such or as OEM from HP or Sun
before Sun bought them).   The last couple of years of the HP OEM here it
was having many issues but it was also very old by that point.

We replaced it with the Quantum i6000 last year and have had almost no
issues with the robot itself.   (We have had issues with the cleaning tapes
(LTO5) report "failed memory chips" on occasion but that hasn't really
affected operations.   Tomorrow we're doing firmware updates to try to
resolve those.)

Back when I used Qualstar (nearly 10 years ago) we had frequent issues with
very new robots.  It finally turned out that there was a rubber bushing at
the base of robot arm/hand that had broken and the operators knew it but
never bothered to communicate it to Admins.   Once we found out Qualstar
fixed it rapidly and we never had another issue while I was there.





-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu] On Behalf Of Justin
Piszcz
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 7:03 AM
To: veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
Subject: [Veritas-bu] Robot inquiry/poll/how well does your robot/s work?

Hello,

I was curious how have people's experiences been with the various robot
vendors?
A thread usually comes up every so often on this mailing list and I was
curious what people's thoughts are?

The usual suspects:

ADIC
Dell ..(?)
HP
IBM
Spectra Logic
STK/Sun/Oracle
Qualstar
Quantum

Am I missing any other types that are current in production and still being
manufactured?


Justin.

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