On Jan 31, 2008 4:09 PM, Ross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm a windows admin so have very little experience of Solaris, but having > seen what ZFS can do, we're thinking of adding a Solaris server on our > network and using ZFS and Samba to give us cheap bulk storage. We'll be > using ZFS send/receive to replicate the data to a second site, but also want > to take tape backups for offline storage, and with my limited knowledge I > have no idea what is and isn't possible here.
I'm not sure from your description whether you really want to do backups or just take archive images. > Ideally we'd like to use something like the Quantum SuperLoader 3. That's an > 8-16 cartridge LTO 2 autoloader. £2,000 for 3.2TB of native capacity gives > us plenty of headroom and it's also upgradable to 6.4TB should we ever need > it. That one looks identical to the Sun C2. I've got one of those. > So, I guess my main questions are: > - Should I expect driver problems getting the Quantum Autoloader working in > Solaris? > - Are there any other Autoloaders that might be a better choice? > - What backup software is available to run tape autoloaders on Solaris? Assuming it's the same as the C2 then it worked just fine after we upgraded the drive firmware (don't ask me why Sun would ship the drive with firmware that wasn't compatible with the C2 it was installed inside). I've used a variety of Sun rebadged autoloaders and they've generally just worked. If you just want to dump stuff at it (taking archive images) then it will work fine as is. You can run it as a pure autoloader (where it loads the next tape when the previous one is finished with). This beastie has a web interface so you can turn off the above sequential mode and move the tapes around. If you want full-featured backup, then normally commercial software is used to control the robotics and automate the loading of the correct tape. I've used both BakBone NetVault and Legato (Sun Enterprise Backup or whatever Sun call the version they sell) with this type of autoloader. Both may set you back more than the autoloader itself, although both have 45 day trials available for download from Sun. It's possible that amanda can control it; you may have to fiddle with stctl, sgen, and mtx. I have to say that I've not had much success with getting mtx to read the barcodes out of mine, which would help automate our own processes somewhat. -- -Peter Tribble http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/ _______________________________________________ storage-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/storage-discuss
