There was a thread last week where backup hardware came into question so I thought I would post this as another opinion. It is from another storage list I am on. I would agree with what is said here. We are in process of implementing LTO here while most of our other backups are M2.
Okay, and now for a final word (at least for a while) about the various claims made by the SDLT and LTO camps. (For the original columns on these, check out "FUD and Other Stupid Vendor Tricks", which ran on Feb. 25, 2002, at http://itw.itworld.com/GoNow/a14724a55447a89154853a8 and "Technology Primer: Linear Tape", which ran on Dec. 17, 2001, at http://itw.itworld.com/GoNow/a14724a55447a89154853a7 Brian Allison, a system consultant for large customer accounts at Dell, offers these words of wisdom. "At Dell, we sell both formats and don't care which one a customer chooses. As an agnostic on the tape subject, this is what I've seen. LTO offers better backup performance, and the size of their backup windows is the biggest concern large corporate customers today. They have complete confidence in the format because of the backers: IBM, HP, and Seagate. They DON'T care about interoperability, they just don't take a cartridge out of one drive and put it into another one." Even if customers did want to swap cartridges among different drives, Allison maintains, the gear would all be "made by the same vendor because they tend to standardize on a certain generation of technology... We have seen evidence that LTO can deliver better price competition from multiple vendors, no surprise there." Allison continues, "Finally, while SDLT offers 10% more capacity per tape, libraries can typically hold more LTO tapes than SDLT tapes, which more than makes up for it. SDLT offers the ability to read older DLT7000 tapes, which everyone has a zillion of. But once they think things through, they realize that this is, at best, a one-time benefit as they migrate. Once a full backup has been done with the new system, backwards-read capability is usually of no value. Customers are not typically using tape as a Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) archive device; most of them don't have an HSM plan in place." At the end of the day, Allison says, Dell's customers are "picking LTO over SDLT about 3-or 4-to-1. As a neutral, I just make sure they understand the tradeoffs and choices. I get paid either way." This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are NOT the intended recipient or the person responsible for delivering the e-mail to the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. ------ You are subscribed as [email protected] Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
