Re: Which Tape Technology?
We were in a similar situation with a 3494 and two 3590E drives. We went with a VTL for the primary stgpools using the 3494 just for offsite copypools and have been very happy with it. Most everything goes straight to the VTL and during the night I do repeated backups of the primary stgpools in the VTL to the copypool stgpool in the 3494. In the morning one final backup from VTL to the 3494 followed by a DB backup and I'm ready to send tapes offsite. Since the primary disk stgpools were reduced to 1GB in size the migration time went to zip. We back up about 1TB per night. Milton -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Rhodes Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 6:57 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Which Tape Technology? Hi Everyone, Currently our tape environment consists of IBM 3494 libraries with 3590H (60gb) drives. It's possible that we may need to greatly expand our environment with some new libraries and drives. This has brought up a discussion about what tape technology we would use. Our environment consists of a mix of large file backups (Oracle databases), small file backups (Netware servers) and lots of stuff in between. If we have to do this, I really can't see purchasing more 3590H drives with cartridges that are only 60gb. I would think we would want to go to the newest 3592 drives or LTO2/LTO3. What are your thoughts/comments/experiences with . . . . . 1) Given our mix of large and small file backups, would LTO tape drives work as well as our current 3590's? 2) Does anyone have any experience using IBMs newest 3592 tape drives? 3) If LTO, is LTO3 the way to go, or stick with older LTO2? 4) Or, should we stick with 3590 drives? With any of the new tape drives, I'm concerned with throughput issues. The newest drives (3592 and LTO3) are so fast that I wonder if it becomes a problem keeping data streaming to them. The capacity is great, but if I can't keep them spinning I wonder if the new drives could cause more problems than they solve. Of course, another option would be a VTL or just local DISK on the TSM server. We've done some initial pricing of some configurations (tape libraries/drives/tapes, disk, and vtl) and so far tape is the least expensive. Just looking for others experiences with this kind of decision . . . . Thanks! Rick - The information contained in this message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this document in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately, and delete the original message.
Re: Which Tape Technology?
We switched from 8-3590E1A drives and the 3494 librar to 8-3592 drives and a 3584 library and trimmed 6 hrs off backup times. We backup 1.3 tb data per night with 90% going to disk pools and then off to tape. We are also essentially getting the work done using four of the drives. Infrastructure is all 2gb fibre with tape drives connected to 2-9216 cisco's with four drives each. -Original Message- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Rhodes Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 7:57 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Which Tape Technology? Hi Everyone, Currently our tape environment consists of IBM 3494 libraries with 3590H (60gb) drives. It's possible that we may need to greatly expand our environment with some new libraries and drives. This has brought up a discussion about what tape technology we would use. Our environment consists of a mix of large file backups (Oracle databases), small file backups (Netware servers) and lots of stuff in between. If we have to do this, I really can't see purchasing more 3590H drives with cartridges that are only 60gb. I would think we would want to go to the newest 3592 drives or LTO2/LTO3. What are your thoughts/comments/experiences with . . . . . 1) Given our mix of large and small file backups, would LTO tape drives work as well as our current 3590's? 2) Does anyone have any experience using IBMs newest 3592 tape drives? 3) If LTO, is LTO3 the way to go, or stick with older LTO2? 4) Or, should we stick with 3590 drives? With any of the new tape drives, I'm concerned with throughput issues. The newest drives (3592 and LTO3) are so fast that I wonder if it becomes a problem keeping data streaming to them. The capacity is great, but if I can't keep them spinning I wonder if the new drives could cause more problems than they solve. Of course, another option would be a VTL or just local DISK on the TSM server. We've done some initial pricing of some configurations (tape libraries/drives/tapes, disk, and vtl) and so far tape is the least expensive. Just looking for others experiences with this kind of decision . . . . Thanks! Rick - The information contained in this message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this document in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately, and delete the original message. -- Note: The information contained in this message may be privileged and confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you. --
Re: Which Tape Technology?
Hi Rick, I haven't time to respond to all of the below, but on your point on LTO drives/streaming: >>> With any of the new tape drives, I'm concerned with throughput issues. The >>> newest drives (3592 and LTO3) are so fast that I wonder if it becomes a >>> problem keeping data streaming to them. The capacity is great, but if I >>> can't keep them spinning I wonder if the new drives could cause more >>> problems than they solve. The good news about LTO2 and LTO3 drives (as opposed to older LTO1s) is that they have an adaptive ability to match the speed at which they spin to as close a rate as possible as the data coming in to reduce the 'backhitch effect' - I think one of the terms for this is DSM or Digital Speed Matching. Additionally, they have increased buffer sizes (64 or 128MB? Maybe more now). I personally haven't ever done a comparison between small/large file access times and 3590/LTO-based drives - but I'm sure someone out there will have... David McClelland Richard Rhodes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" 22/09/2005 12:56 Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" To ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU cc Subject [ADSM-L] Which Tape Technology? Hi Everyone, Currently our tape environment consists of IBM 3494 libraries with 3590H (60gb) drives. It's possible that we may need to greatly expand our environment with some new libraries and drives. This has brought up a discussion about what tape technology we would use. Our environment consists of a mix of large file backups (Oracle databases), small file backups (Netware servers) and lots of stuff in between. If we have to do this, I really can't see purchasing more 3590H drives with cartridges that are only 60gb. I would think we would want to go to the newest 3592 drives or LTO2/LTO3. What are your thoughts/comments/experiences with . . . . . 1) Given our mix of large and small file backups, would LTO tape drives work as well as our current 3590's? 2) Does anyone have any experience using IBMs newest 3592 tape drives? 3) If LTO, is LTO3 the way to go, or stick with older LTO2? 4) Or, should we stick with 3590 drives? With any of the new tape drives, I'm concerned with throughput issues. The newest drives (3592 and LTO3) are so fast that I wonder if it becomes a problem keeping data streaming to them. The capacity is great, but if I can't keep them spinning I wonder if the new drives could cause more problems than they solve. Of course, another option would be a VTL or just local DISK on the TSM server. We've done some initial pricing of some configurations (tape libraries/drives/tapes, disk, and vtl) and so far tape is the least expensive. Just looking for others experiences with this kind of decision . . . . Thanks! Rick - The information contained in this message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this document in error and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately, and delete the original message.
