Spectra
Logic's Library Packs 156 TB in 14U
BOULDER,
Colo. - April 5, 2004 - Today Spectra Logic announced a new tape library
which provides enterprise features at a mid range price.
Until
now, high-end features were reserved for refrigerator-sized libraries that cost
hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not anymore. The new Spectra T120 automated
tape library provides up to 48 TB compressed with LTO-2 or 156 TB compressed
with SAIT in 14U and the same rich features found in the Spectra T950 tape
library, where a single frame holds almost 1,000 tapes. The T120 also offers
TCP/IP Offload Engine technology which permits Ethernet protocols, like iSCSI
and NDMP, to run at full line transfer rates, affordably rivaling Fibre
Channel's speed.
Jon Toigo, storage technology consumer advocate and CEO of Toigo
Partners International LLC, says, "The T120 is the perfect complement to
Spectra Logic's growing line of smart, well-engineered tape automation
solutions, and a solid entry in the intelligent storage solutions space. The
engineering is top-notch and proves that you can deliver affordable storage
without compromising performance or business value."
The T120 supplies the widest range of features of any competitive
library, so that users can customize it to precisely meet current needs, and
continue to adapt over the life of the investment. The features include remote
management, library partitioning, mixed media, Capacity on Demand, hot swap
drives and controllers, and much more.
Nathan Thompson, CEO and founder of Spectra Logic, adds, "We saw
that our customers had older libraries with aging technology. Often, they wanted
a single up-to-date, densely packed rack-mount library to replace an aging,
oversized half-inch library wasting data center space. So Spectra Logic designed
and built the T120, which supports both SAIT and LTO-2,."
The Spectra T120 tape library holds 30 to 120 tapes, scales to six
full-height drives or ten half-height drives and begins at $16,600. It supports
Gigabit Ethernet with TOE, 2 Gb Fibre Channel and direct-attach SCSI.
...Spectra Logic
profile
Breece Hill Launches SAIT Compliance Autoloader
Louisville, CO.-
March 22, 2004 - Breece Hill LLC today announced that it has launched a
SAIT Compliance Autoloader.
Integrating XenData's Archive Series
Software and Sony's SAIT standard and WORM tape media with its own innovative
10- and 16-pak tape libraries. Breece Hill¹s SAIT Autoloader delivers a
true compliance solution in a compact 4U footprint that stores up to 13 TB of
non-rewriteable data for the small and medium business market.
"The
SAIT Autoloader is ideal for companies required to meet the data authenticity
compliance requirements for the SEC¹s Rule 17a-4, the HIPAA and the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act," said Breece Hill President Phil Pascarelli.
...Breece Hill profile
StorageTek Introduces Native FICONConnectivity
for T9840C Tape Drive
LOUISVILLE,
Colo. - March 18, 2004 - StorageTek today announced its advanced 'fast
access' T9840C tape drive equipped with a native FICON interface for seamless
connectivity and high performance tape storage in MVS environments.
With
the addition of the dual port FICON interface to the currently available ESCON
and Fibre Channel interfaces, StorageTek continues its history of being the only
supplier of native FICON and ESCON enterprise class tape drives for IBM zSeries
environments. StorageTek's T9840C features an industry-leading 12-second average
data access time, 30 MB/second data throughput for faster backup and restores,
and 40 GB/cartridge capacity (uncompressed) - all while maintaining the
customer's existing investment in T9840 media.
"The T9840C with native FICON connectivity is the most
cost-effective solution for storing critical data and providing rapid data
accessibility in z/OS (MVS) environments, effectively bridging the cost and
performance gap between tape storage and high-priced disk solutions. We
anticipate that many existing T9840 drive customers will move quickly to this
new offering to take advantage of the higher speed and capacity with their
current T9840 media." said Jon Benson, vice president and general manager,
Automated Tape Solutions, StorageTek.
To help protect their media
investments, customers moving from T9840 ESCON drives or T9840B FICON drives
will have complete media compatibility when utilizing the T9840C FICON.
StorageTek will deliver native FICON connectivity for the T9840C's sister drive,
the high capacity T9940B, later in 2004.
...StorageTek
profile
STORServer Unveils the World's Largest Capacity
Backup Appliances
Colorado
Springs, CO - March 9, 2004 - STORServer, Inc. announced today that it
is shipping its latest line of backup recovery solutions.
The new
K-Series models utilize the latest in tape technology from Qualstar to provide
the largest capacity backup appliances in the world.
The K3000 and K5000 SAIT Backup Appliances, at 3-15 Tbyte and 10-62
Tbyte of customer data respectively, are built around the new ½ - inch Sony
AIT from Qualstar.
The SAIT K5000, at 132 to 262 slots of 500 Gbytes
of data per slot, translates to a 131 Tbyte library at uncompressed capacity in
the STORServer's on-line storage pool. With compression, the pool can reach 343
Tbytes of storage space in one 3-foot by 5-foot cabinet. Based on retention
options, this large appliance can handle from 10-62 terabytes of live customer
data.
The smaller SAIT K3000 models starts at 33 slots and expands to
66 in a 19" by 22 U rack space. Customers with large file or many file
environments, like satellite, communication, or audio/video images, can now keep
both backup and archive copies of their data on-line for rapid recovery.
STORServer also provides disaster recovery copies of both backups and archives
in remote vault locations. ...STORServer profile |
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Nibble
Re: Tape Libraries
Tape libraries seem to be under attack
from every other part of the storage industry. For many years now, they've had
to compete with optical
jukeboxes at the low end, and more recently several
NAS manufacturers, such as
Nexsan Technologies,
have touted their networked RAID systems (based on winchester disk technology)
as tape library killers. You can even get software which emulates your tape
library.
Web based storage services and IP data replication are other
ways of solving the basic problem of large scale off site data backup and
recovery without having to own a box which looks and sounds like a Darth Vader
style coffee machine.
Tape library manufacturers have been fighting
back. Tape based - AIT WORM technology satisfies SEC as an archiving standard,
and provides an effective counter to optical media. Many library manufacturers
have also become born again
SAN software
companies. The thinking here is that if you're using their software to manage
your storage network the switching cost to another vendor is higher. | |
| . |
Winners:-
disk to disk backup
Losers:- tape
The declining revenue in
the tape library market in recent years wasn't just due to the recession.
There's been a long term shift away from slow unreliable network tape backup to
faster disk to disk backup which is perceived as being more reliable. Comparing
the first few months of 2001 with 2003 - the
tape libraries page on
STORAGEsearch has dropped in popularity by 5 positions. And today
disk to disk backup (which
wasn't even a separate category in 2001) is now seen by 12% more readers than
the tape library page.
...from the March 2004 article:-
Storage Winners and Losers
from the IT Recession | | |
