A general advisory... Commonly overlooked in throughput reviews is the
computer's system bus. Sites may be implementing new technology with
ever-increasing data rates on the same computer they've been using for years,
and then wonder why they aren't seeing the throughput they expect. LTO5's
specs include a 280 MB/s data rate (with 2:1 compression). The capacity of a
PCI bus is 266 MB/s - and that bus has to be able handle traffic other than
what's going to one tape drive. Be sure to examine the system in total when
sizing for certain data rates, whether a traditional computer system or a
SAN-based storage solution.
Richard Sims at Boston University
