I've used mostly the big library iron:
StorageTek Powderhorn - Very reliable, EOL now, but up to 450 tape
exchanges per hour, slow to inventory if it needed to scan the entire
library
StorageTek SL8500 - Loved the redundancy, speed and scalability. Had 3 at
a former employer. One had a problem in which one of the plastic tape rack
modules (the things that mount on the walls of the library and hold the
tapes) was slightly warped. Occasionally, when a handbot would come
speeding by and it was holding a tape at the right height, it would knock
the tape out of the gripper. No complaints here. Stellar service from
Sun/STK whenever we needed.
StorageTek L700 - Very reliable, supported multiple types of drives,
reasonably quick robotics
IBM TS3100/3200 - Nice small/medium office libraries. Occasionally run
into problems with the robotics and drives, but not terribly frequently.
IBM support can be difficult to deal with sometimes in our locations
outside of the US
IBM TS3310 - Solid library, can't remember having problems with them.
Robotics are slow. Decent scalability, and can be partitioned into logical
libraries.
Extending this discussion, what about tape drives?
We've just started using IBM LTO-5 drives earlier this year and have been
blown away with their performance and capacity. Haven't had to replace any
yet.
Our LTO-3 drives have been solid performers regardless of manufacturer.
STK T9940A/B. Nice, reliable enterprise class drives. Didn't require us
to buy new tapes when moving from the A to B series.
STK T10000 - Bought some of these at a former employer, but left before
they could be installed. Heard they were great drives.
DLT/SDLT - Meh.
--
Jack Forester, Jr.
Sr. Data Protection Administrator
Global Technology Services - AHS
Mylan, Inc.
5005 Greenbag Road
Morgantown, WV 26501
jack.forester AT mylan DOT com
Phone: +1.304.554.6039
Cell: +1.412.805.5313
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: 12/01/2011 10:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Robot inquiry/poll/how well does your robot/s
work?
Sent by: veritas-bu-bounces AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
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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