LTO 2 drives for a Quantum P4000

[figmatalan]

I'm looking after a Quantum P4000 jukebox running legato and it currently has 8 LTO 1 drives installed.

I'm looking to change these for LTO 2 drives but have been quoted wildly differing prices for the drives from between £1500 and £8000 each.

The £1500 ones will not be library ones, but can anyone suggest an LTO 2 drive at a reasonable cost which can fit in this jukebox?

It's currently working out only slightly dearer to buy a new Storagetek jukebox with 6 drives as opposed to simply replacing the drives in the current hardware!!!

 

[tapedrivedoctor]

what make are your LTO1's. There are a few companies that will do part exchange, which might bring the price down.

 

[figmatalan]

They are all Quantum drives.

 

[tapedrivedoctor]

There are three manufacturers of LTO drives. HP, IBM and Seagate. Quantum only badge it as theirs.

 

[figmatalan]

They are all badged Quantum, that's all I can tell you to be honest.

Not too worried about the trade in value, more the cost of LTO 2's to go in it. I can understand a difference in price between an internal drive for a server and an internal drive for a jukebox, but not 5 times the price!

 

[tapedrivedoctor]

you have possibly been getting quotes for different makes of LTO2, i.e. a 2nd user hp lto2 will be a lot cheaper than a new IBM lto2. It is a very difficult task to price like for like, as there are so many people who sell tape drives. It all depends what quality you want and at what price you want to pay

 

[figmatalan]

I've been quoted £1500 for a new internal LTO 2 drive, Dell branded, and I've been quoted 5 times that for a new Quantum branded drive specifically for the P4000 (i.e. they have probably put it in a slightly bigger case to fit or something).

Basically I need 6 new LTO 2 drives which will fit in a Quantum P4000 library. The company I work for are not too keen on spending £50K on 6 tape drives, but £9K for 6 sounds a lot more reasonable.

 

[tapedrivedoctor]

The dell drives are so cheap because they won't work in the library. You need to have drives which are Library Ready. You will be able to get drives which don't come from quantum but will work at a lower cost than £8000. Not allowed to promote companies on here, so if you have an email, I can send you links.

 

[figmatalan]

Any info to wilkoathome at hotmail.com would be appreciated.