What is the right drive to use. LTO or 9940 or ???

[johnny99]

I am looking into the budget we would like to have for next year and when I saw the current prices for LTO2, LTO3 and 9940B I started to think a little what drive standard would be the best for us.

Basicly I ended up with that the best thing for us is to keep on using 9940B FC, but I would like to know what you think about it.


Some of the things I have been thinking about recarding tapedrives are:

Pros 9940B (mostly also true for 9840C)

- Rock solid
- Stable
- Can take the beating of almost 24 hours use per day for years
- Very low write error rate (almost none)
- Very low read error rate (haven't had a tape in 5 years we couldn't read
- Robust media
- Simple media
- Media cost
- Native FC interface (no SCSI to FC conversion)
- We can feed the drives to keep them running at full speed
- Use of automatic cleaning has worked since day 1
- Good hardware compression

Neutral:
- Maintenance cost = LTO
- NBU cost = LTO
- Performance ok
- Capacity ok
- Mount time ok (shit compared to 9840C but we don't need that speed)

Cons 9940B
- Cost per drive
- (haven't found anything)

Pros LTO2

- Standard
- Cost per drive is faily low

Neutral:
- Maintenance cost = 9940B
- NBU cost = 9940B
- Performance ok
- Capacity ok
- Mount time ok (shit compared to 9840C but we don't need that speed)

Cons LTO2

- Not very robust media (don't drop in on your floor)
- Drives can't take a daily use of 16-24 hours a day for long (compared to 9940B and other high end drives)
- SCSI to FC conversion.

LTO3 (don't know that much about them)

Cons.

- Great performance (if you can feed them)
- Great capacity
- Standard
- Cost per drive is faily low

Neutral:
- Maintenance cost = 9940B
- NBU cost = 9940B
- Performance ok
- Capacity ok
- Mount time ok (shit compared to 9840C but we don't need that speed)

Cons LTO3

- Not very robust media (don't drop in on your floor)
- Drives can't take a daily use of 16-24 hours a day for long (compared to 9940B and other high end drives)
- SCSI to FC conversion.

All feedback is welcome.

/johnny

 

[comtec17]

What is the purpose of the drives besides backups? Are you needing to use these drives for HSM or Oracle Hot backups?

 

[johnny99]

In my case it is only backup, restore and recovery.
We don't have Oracle, but we have a bunch of MS SQL servers.

/johnny

 

[comtec17]

The 9940 are much more expensive than the LTO's. Also, the 9940's are mainly used for fast seek and quick load as they also have a higher meantime. The LTO's work just fine for backup without the added cost.

 

[johnny99]

If you look at loadtime and seek time (at least in the specs) there is not much difference on that if you compare 9940B to LTO2
There is a huge difference if we talk about 9840C

When I talk to people that use LTO2 they basicly say that LTO2 is good if you can keep them running. Stop and Go is killing the drives and tapes.
And if you use them more then 8 hours a day a drive will not last longer then 12 months.
And if you drop a media on your computerfloor you have a good chance of loosing the data on that media.

And when I think about how often we drop a 9940 media when we have to handle them manualy, I can't help thinking what would happen if we had used LTO2

/johnny

 

[JBKCESSDK]

Hi Johnny,

It seems that you have your mind set on the 9940 drives witch I fully understand, there is alternative ways for you to purchase these drives cheaper than you are used to, have you considered purchasing them refurbished?

I mean this will reduce your initially cost with about 50% off the list price.

KR - Jens.

 

[johnny99]

Trust me I don't pay anything close to listprices, also not for tapedrives
And when we talk about this kind of hardware I don't care if it's new or not.
And even if I buy a new drive directly from StorageTek I can't even be sure that it is new (but they also state the in the contracts)
And since we have a 2 hour support aggreement with StorageTek it takes less then 3-4 hours to have a replacement drive (normaly less the 2 hours to be honest)

Yes I like the 9940 drives and also the media. I have dropped my share of this kind of media on the floor and I have never had a problem.
And a 9940 media feels like a old 3480 media so that also makes me feel a little more safe.

But what I am trying to do is basicly to figure out if I am right or not about still keep on going with the 9940 drives. It was much more easy when we had the option 9940 or DLT.

/johnny

 

[kodiakid]

the only customers i support that use 9940's are also using the powderhorn. they do use them in the l700 as well. so unless you have that type of scalability. comparing the lto's and 9940b's is almost like apples and oranges if you ask me. i would say go with lto3 fibre drives

 

[JohnPlayerSpecial]

IBM has also the FC connected LTO-2 drives. I agree that those FC/SCSI MUXes are pain in the ass.