It is time to get a new tape library. We are outgrowing our old one.
(30 DLT IV tapes, 1 drive, 29 hosts & 521Gbytes to be backed up).
I now wonder what features I should look for.
Perhaps someone can comment?
Multiple tape drives:
Our old library had only one drive installed. I could have added
a second one, but I could not see how amanda would use it to advantage.
Can amanda use a second (or third...) drive?
Is there any benefit?
Barcodes:
Can amanda find a tape faster if the library supports barcodes?
The current method of reading the headers of each tape is slow
enough to make me willing to drive to work to look at the written
labels on the tapes.
AIT's "memory" (or whatever it is):
Can this kind of mechanism be used instead of barcodes to find
the tape quicker?
Other features (or bugs) of each technology:
Are there any other things that are good/bad of each
technology (DLT, SDLT, LTO, ...)? Are there any gotchas for
particular implementations? Like known incompatabilities?
We are willing to change technologies as we will be using the new library
in addition to the old (we have a good way to split the dump "domains"),
but we are a little partial to DLT.
Is there a list of the technologies and libraries available for each?
I looked at www.backupcentral.com as mentioned in the FAQ-O-Matic, but
all I found was links to the manufacturers pages.
--
Gary Algier, WB2FWZ gaa at ulticom.com +1 856 787 2758
Ulticom Inc., 1020 Briggs Rd, Mt. Laurel, NJ 08054 Fax:+1 856 866 2033
