Also Sprach Olivier Nicole:
> >The next part of my question is about DLT vs. AME technologies
> >themselves. It seems like everyone
> >uses DLT for its reliability but AME (including Mammoth and AIT) boast
> >faster transfer rates
> >and greater capacity. I was wondering if anyone had any horror stories
> >or personal experiences to help
> >me to decide which technology to go with.
>
AME (Advance Metal Evaporative) is a tape media technology. Linear tapes
for the most part use another tape media technology called AMP (Advance
Metal Particle). AME currently is capable of higher data densities
which is a requirement for 8mm helical scan tape drives since
they use smaller cartridges. Both media technologies claim excellent
shelf life and reuse cycles.
Linear and helical scan technologies are both mature technologies
and proven reliable for many applications. The marketing literature
from each side would have you believe the other technology is
a steaming pile of crap destined for an early inglorious extinction,
but we all know what marketing is worth. As for word of mouth
comparison, there aren't that many admins who have experience
with both technologies, most chose one early on and stick
with it since it's a bloody pain to migrate.
Mammoth and AIT do not have higher single cartridge capacities
or higher transfer rates. SuperDLT and LTO Ultrium have single
cartridge capacities of ~100GB and transfer rates of > 12MB/s.
Mammoth 2 has a native capacity of 60GB and AIT-2 50GB. Both
have roadmaps with 100GB capacity within the next year however.
DLT has more of a track record than the other midrange tape
technologies, mostly because throughout the early '90s it was
the only decent midrange tape drive. DDS2 and Exabyte 8x00 were
really quite unreliable. As a result you will hear a lot of
(mostly justified) praise from system administrators for DLT;
however, this does not mean that other tape drives are not
reliable or worthy of consideration. As mentioned by Mr. Olivier,
Tandberg SLR is another worthy linear tape competitor which
is actually less expensive for a given capacity than DLT.
I would say that linear tape has an advantage in transfer rate
and cartridge capacity. Linear tapes are also less susceptible to
environmental factors like dust or smoke.
8mm helical scan has faster time to restore, especially Sony AIT with
static RAM on each cartridge. This is important in HSM applications
where IBM Magstor is really the only option among linear tapes.
8mm autoloaders and jukeboxes also have higher data densities since
the cartridges are smaller, making them the storage of choice in
space constrained operations.
In short there is no simple answer.
--
C. Chan < [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
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