I can't resist to step in here. The battle of the tape format is continuing day by day. Many vendors are pushing people away from current DLT technology saying it's doomed, and that AIT isn't far behind. The big pushes are on LTO's and newer drives. I've had my eye on StorageTek for awhile now because they are doing some really neat things, namely FC to the drive in their T9840B drive. The T9940's are nice two with 60G native and 120G 2:1 compressed. But then it all comes down to your stratagy. If you have a small enviroment and you only want to back up, say 1-2TB, then you might like some of the 20slot AIT2/3 arrays from ADIC. SDLT is looking good with native capacities for 110G and higher with compression plus descent speed, however a key factor between DLT and AIT right now is also physical size. If you have a cramped facility you may not have adiquate room for DLT robots, which is where the nice and tiny AITs are handy.
There are alot of choices. Currently I'm still liking LTO because it has 15MB/sec sustained rates per drive plus a 100G native capacity, but right now it probly comes down to cost more than anything. In which case, if you buy a robot, buy bigger than you need to so you can scale later.
As for which is best specifically for a Filer, I know that you supposedly can put a robot directly onto a head, but I haven't seen anyone do it, and probly would opt to use a seperate gig-network with a dedicated backup server and anything I wanted on the back end of it.
Maybe that helps. I hope.
Ben Rockwood
-----Original Message----- From: Jeff Kennedy [mailto:jlkennedy@amcc.com] Sent: Thu 4/25/2002 6:26 AM To: dwald@kersey.yi.org Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: Tape drive recommendations Here are my thoughts:
AIT: pros: Great product, nice access time due to the embedded chip, best choice for nearline tape storage, small footprint cons: only media supplier is Sony, the rest are just re-sellers (chances are they aren't going anywhere but you never know)
SDLT: pros: Long track record, can read older DLT media (if BRC drive), supported by everyone cons: potential for mixing media
LTO: not a big fan of LTO, thought it would be great in the beginning but the "unified format" fractured long before I thought it would.
~JK
dwald@kersey.yi.org wrote:
Hi all.
We've been using DLT7000 drives off the back of our 740's for some time now, and are looking to upgrade.
According to the NOW site, NetApps supports the SuperDL220, AIT-3 and some of the LTO's, among others.
Capacity and throughput are somewhat close across the three types, I'm curious for any thoughts on which is preferred? Any horror stories on any of these with Filers?
Thanks