Upcoming Events

Interop is the only event to give you a comprehensive and unbiased understanding of all the latest innovations—including cloud computing, virtualization, security, mobility and data center advances—that help position your company for growth.

Register Now!


	F E A T U R E

Hungry for Backup? Order a DLT August 9, 1999 By Tom Yager In this era of ever-expanding databases, CYA is the name of the game. Backup is crucial, but the giant, expensive autoloading tape libraries are out of reach for smaller organizations, and for departments within larger ones. These massive autoloaders can locate, pick and load a cartridge in less than 30 seconds, with robots selecting from among hundreds of media. Fortunately, a number of vendors offer more affordable automated solutions. We issued a call to several vendors for libraries meeting the following test criteria: one or more 35-GB DLT (Digital Linear Tape) tape drives, the capacity for 10 or more cartridges, a bar-code reader (for cartridge labels) and a wide SCSI interface. Six vendors--ADIC, ATL Products, Breece Hill Technologies, Exabyte Corp., Overland Data and Qualstar--responded to our query with products. However, we later excluded Breece Hill's product because of a faulty unit--but don't dismiss the vendor entirely. We look forward to another opportunity to test its products in the future. The Exabyte 230D Automated DLT Tape Library knocked our socks off (well, at least to the extent we can get excited about an automated tape loader), with its speedy robotics and solid construction. It's not flawless, but the Overland Data MiniLibrary Xpress proved itself the most rugged of the group, highly suitable for work in a secure location. In our north Texas lab, we constructed a special rig to run these libraries through their paces. For backup software, we selected Veritas (formerly Seagate Software) Backup Exec version 7.3--a Windows NT-specific package with broad device compatibility and a good track record with autoloaders. Most of the benchmark tests were set up as Backup Exec jobs to ensure that all libraries would be tested under the same conditions. All the libraries used identical drives (Quantum DLT 7000), which made it pointless to test throughput performance. We focused instead on the libraries' speed at picking, loading and unloading media, their consistency in responding to Backup Exec commands and the speed at which they could erase a group of 10 cartridges. In the command tests, all five libraries responded consistently, so we eliminated these results from the benchmark tables. DLT has a long history, but then it is built to last. With a half-inch surface area and a tape length of up to 1,800 feet, DLT combines high capacity and long life. A single cartridge is good for 1 million passes across a tape head, and can last for up to 30 years in storage. With more than a million drives in service, Quantum has cornered the high-capacity backup market. Next year will bring huge changes as Quantum squares off against the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) partnership of Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp. and Seagate. The format promises 100 GB per tape and transfer rates between 20 MB per second and 40 MB per second. Quantum's Super DLT format will hit the 100 GB mark, but transfer rates will start at 10 MB per second. Super DLT's backward compatibility with DLT will strengthen its position in the battle with the upstart LTO.
PAGE: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I NEXT PAGE

Research and Reports