🚀 go-pugleaf

"Captain Obvious" <someone@somewhere.net> wrote in message
news:13xca.38008$JE5.6339@news2.central.cox.net...
> I need to move up from an Exabyte Mammoth2  drive to a library system.
I've
> been displeased by the numerous tape errors from the M2.
>
> I'm looking at two options right now:
>
> 1. Quantum ATL Superloader with a SDLT 320 drive. I would get a $2500
credit
> on tradeup to the SDLT 600 drive in the fall. The total cash outlay after
> the drive upgrade would be similar to the cost of the Neo 2000, but I'd
have
> to buy new tapes in 6 months. Still, this is 50% more native storage than
> the LTO-2.
>
> 2. Overland Storage Neo 2000 with an LTO-2 drive. This is a larger
library.
> I don't really need 30 media bays, but it could come in handy when I go on
> vacation.
>

If you want to change technology, check out the Exabyte 110L or 221L LTO
library. Solid equipment, at a good price. Also ask yourself why your M2 is
giving you trouble. If your environment isn't up to the task of feeding the
tape drive at a reasonable rate, then any (S)DLT or LTO tape drive may also
exhibit reliability issues down the road. HP, Seagate and Exabyte all have
excellent whitepapers on optimising backup environments, and what to look
for in case of trouble. You wouldn't be the first to discover that a
workgroupWin2K server with simple backup software can't backup any faster
than 3-6 MB/s...

If your investigations show that your system will not be able to drive the
top-end tape drives properly, you may want to consider Exabyte VXA-2
(80GB@6MB/s native) in an AutoPAK 1x7 desktop loader (costs less than a
stand-alone M2 drive), AutoPAK 1x10 (19" 2U rackmount) or a 430V (max 4
drives, 30 slots).

Rob (who works for Exabyte)