I've used mostly the big library iron: StorageTek Powderhorn - Very reliable, EOL now, but up to 450 tape exchanges per hour, slow to inventory if it needed to scan the entire library StorageTek SL8500 - Loved the redundancy, speed and scalability. Had 3 at a former employer. One had a problem in which one of the plastic tape rack modules (the things that mount on the walls of the library and hold the tapes) was slightly warped. Occasionally, when a handbot would come speeding by and it was holding a tape at the right height, it would knock the tape out of the gripper. No complaints here. Stellar service from Sun/STK whenever we needed. StorageTek L700 - Very reliable, supported multiple types of drives, reasonably quick robotics IBM TS3100/3200 - Nice small/medium office libraries. Occasionally run into problems with the robotics and drives, but not terribly frequently. IBM support can be difficult to deal with sometimes in our locations outside of the US IBM TS3310 - Solid library, can't remember having problems with them. Robotics are slow. Decent scalability, and can be partitioned into logical libraries.
Extending this discussion, what about tape drives? We've just started using IBM LTO-5 drives earlier this year and have been blown away with their performance and capacity. Haven't had to replace any yet. Our LTO-3 drives have been solid performers regardless of manufacturer. STK T9940A/B. Nice, reliable enterprise class drives. Didn't require us to buy new tapes when moving from the A to B series. STK T10000 - Bought some of these at a former employer, but left before they could be installed. Heard they were great drives. DLT/SDLT - Meh. -- Jack Forester, Jr. Sr. Data Protection Administrator Global Technology Services - AHS Mylan, Inc. 5005 Greenbag Road Morgantown, WV 26501 jack.fores...@mylan.com Phone: +1.304.554.6039 Cell: +1.412.805.5313 From: "Justin Piszcz" <jpis...@lucidpixels.com> To: "'Lightner, Jeff'" <jlight...@water.com>, veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Date: 12/01/2011 10:16 AM Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Robot inquiry/poll/how well does your robot/s work? Sent by: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Hi, So far what I've received 1 e-mail off-list and this one: Quotes = Paraphrasing. ADIC - (bought by Quantum, see Quantum) Dell - "DELL PV136T robots seemed to have a lot of problems" HP/ESL9595s - Seemed to lockup a lot and throw tapes on the floor, suffice to say these aren't sold anymore, this was 10+ years ago. HP/MSL6000s - Smaller robots worked very well, very minor/no issues at all but they only held 30-60 tapes or so.. HP - Any G3 owners here? IBM TS2900 - "Has crashed a couple of times" IBM 3584 (now TS3500) - "Only a couple of errors since 2005-2006, very stable robot." Spectra Logic - Any takers? STK/SL500 - Have had a lot of fun with caps and loading/unloading tapes, make sure you test when you install one of these units, often there can be parts of plastic that are not cut properly so there can be cap errors, related issues. For the most part, they work fine; however, a lot more maintenance goes into maintaining lots of smaller robots and the cost of SL500s price per slot (compared to larger ones) is high but it fits into a standard rack. STK/L700s - I find that the type of drives can also seem to impact how well the robot works, in terms of tapes getting stuck, also different drives can use different bezel designs, this can also affect reliability. I've used L700s at a some companies and find these (when paired with IBM LTO-4 drives) the robot itself is typically very reliable; however, with HP + LTO-2 that was not the case, lots of errors, robot lockups etc. Then there is the redundancy issue, they have two PSU's, the robot itself will stay online (?) but you will lose 1/2 the tape drives, not an issue though if you have good/reliable power. STK/SL8500s - Redundant, reliable all around best STK/Sun/Oracle option for enterprises, SL500 otherwise. SL3000s are nice as well (haven't seen one up close) but they are not nearly as redundant as an SL8500 and cost around the same when fully expanded. STK/Sun/Oracle - Curious of others' reviews of the robots mentioned above. Qualstar - "Possible issues with new robots but once the root problem is fixed, no further issues." Quantum - Scalar i6000 " almost no issues with the robot itself, minor issue with cleaning tapes." This is great info, only ones that are left are the HP G3 series (similar to HP ESL9595s) and Spectra Logic series of robots. Anyone out there using those/or have comments on what I have written? Are there any manufacturers I have missed? Justin. -----Original Message----- From: Lightner, Jeff [mailto:jlight...@water.com] Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 9:34 AM To: Justin Piszcz; veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: RE: [Veritas-bu] Robot inquiry/poll/how well does your robot/s work? At various jobs I ran the STK L700 (either as such or as OEM from HP or Sun before Sun bought them). The last couple of years of the HP OEM here it was having many issues but it was also very old by that point. We replaced it with the Quantum i6000 last year and have had almost no issues with the robot itself. (We have had issues with the cleaning tapes (LTO5) report "failed memory chips" on occasion but that hasn't really affected operations. Tomorrow we're doing firmware updates to try to resolve those.) Back when I used Qualstar (nearly 10 years ago) we had frequent issues with very new robots. It finally turned out that there was a rubber bushing at the base of robot arm/hand that had broken and the operators knew it but never bothered to communicate it to Admins. Once we found out Qualstar fixed it rapidly and we never had another issue while I was there. -----Original Message----- From: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of Justin Piszcz Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 7:03 AM To: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: [Veritas-bu] Robot inquiry/poll/how well does your robot/s work? Hello, I was curious how have people's experiences been with the various robot vendors? A thread usually comes up every so often on this mailing list and I was curious what people's thoughts are? The usual suspects: ADIC Dell ..(?) HP IBM Spectra Logic STK/Sun/Oracle Qualstar Quantum Am I missing any other types that are current in production and still being manufactured? Justin. _______________________________________________ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu Athena(r), Created for the Cause(tm) Making a Difference in the Fight Against Breast Cancer --------------------------------- CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain privileged or confidential information and is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error, and delete it. 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