fresh out of school--help me out

[sigm]

We are currently looking for a backup storage solution for our exchange, file/print and sql servers. We need somewhere between 150/300 storage range at the moment, but would like to account for scalability in the future.
What metrics do you look for when figuring for future growth and backup storage?
Also, without getting into the high cost of NAS, are there any good networked tape bakcup autoloaders out there?
Can I setup a networked tape backup device, and where can i look for more info?
Thanks

 

[technome]

Be aware autoloader are expensive to purchase and to maintain. Should you need repair after the initial warranty be prepaired for the bill.
After a bad experience with an DLT 7000 autoloader going out of calibaration every few months, and ruining mutiple tapes every time I would purchase an AIT-3 auto loader (Sony has an 8 slot for about 6000.00). Sony also warants the tapes for life. Throughput is 1.2 gig/minute. Tape capacity 100native,260 compressed. There are faster drives but price is much higher, such as Ait-4 or LTO II.