Tape Library Advice

[rrkano]

We are considering retiring our Compaq TL-891 Tape Libray and buying a new one. One of my VAR's wants me to look at the Exabyte VXA-320 PacketLoader 1x10 1U. Does anyone know anything about this product? Or can someone recommend a Tape Library to look at?

Thanks

 

[vschumpy]

I tend to prefer Overland or ADIC myself personally, however, make sure the drive/library you intend to purchase is on the ARCserve Certified Device List for the product/version you intend to use it with, you will avoid a lot of pain by doing this:

http://supportconnectw.ca.com/public/storage/ascdls.asp

 

[davidmichel]

I say stay with DLT, and I also like Overland they have quality and afordability. ADIC has gone down in my eyes the last couple of years but still makes good products.

 

[TDun]

Depending on how many tapes you have (as thy up the price a lot), I would say:
1: If youhave a lot of tapes, staywith DLT, but consider it is end of life technology
2: Switch to LTO qand make the investment now, before you startusing more tapes.
The LTO technology is faster and holds more (LTO 3 is still better than the last/latest SuperDLT).

 

[vschumpy]

It's a bit unfair to say that DLT is end of life - it really isn't.

Personally I prefer LTO for speed and reliability, but you bring up a good point that DLT tapes are backward compatible to a certain extent in SDLT drives. See Quantum's site for details (can't direct link it unfortunately)

 

[davidmichel]

I've seen more problems with LTO than SDLT and still think they are a better choice.

If you base your choice over capacity and throughput alone why not go for AIT, or the new Storage Tek tape drive with a 1T capacity. No not for me, after looking at all the factors I still go for SDLT.

 

[rrkano]

Thanks very much for all of your advice. I'm leaning towards the Overland Drives, I've heard several people say that they are good. I appreciate the help.

 

[jfrantz]

rrkano,

I just purchased the Exabyte VXA-320 PacketLoader 1x10 1U device. I have ARCserve version 9 and the VXA-320 works great! It's fast and seems well built. I was using two HP SureStore DAT 72x6 drives but was running out of capacity and somewhat slow.

The Exabyte PacketLoader is a fantastic deal for $2400, especially for a smaller company with a lot of data. The 160/320GB tapes are $70 each which is a bit cheaper than the equivalent number of DAT72 tapes. Being able to back up 2-3 TB of data on the Exabyte changer should be enough for a few years.

-Jeff