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I believe with the Dell boxes (they're all made by ADIC, at least the library's are) you can just replace the interface card to switch from SCSI to Fiber Channel. That card is not cheap at all, but I believe you can do a replacement. I'm not 100% on that for the ML6000's, but I know the 136T can be converted after purchase. We currently start our backups at 9PM and are finishing around 7AM. With the growth we've already seen and the amount we're anticipating we're adding the second library to help us keep up. As a generality we don't use the higher end support options from Dell. Most of our servers have bronze support (Next Business Day) with us having a spare server onsite that we can steal parts from if necessary. On critical servers we usually put Silver support on them, which gives you 7x24 4-hour response. With tape library's, we actually use gold support. The library going down has too much potential for major disaster. As a result we go with higher end maintenance. On the 136T we have moved our maintenance to Service Express, and actually have replacement parts sitting on the shelf onsite. We do this just because we know that the picker will be getting replaced every couple of months. While I understand your reasoning behind getting tapes through University Stores, we have learned that when you have problems there tends to be a desire by the support folks to blame the tape. To combat this, we've been buying the tapes directly from Dell. Their pricing has been very competitive and it totally gets you out of the blame game as to who caused a problem. -tim ________________________________ Timothy D. First, MCSE Information Technologist III Michigan State University Administrative Information Services [log in to unmask] (517) 353-4420 x335 Fax: (517) 355-5176 -----Original Message----- From: Al Bray [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 3:00 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] Backup Devices/Media Hey Tim, Thanks for the feedback on the Dell ML6000 line. I had looked at the Dell tape libraries through the link via the MSU Computer Store Premier Pricing when I initially started looking for a replacement library. But the ML6000 stuff is kind of buried out there and all I was seeing at the time was the 136T and 132T systems. Actually looking today, still have to drill down. I should have known Dell had a product line similar to the Quantum PX500 line. The ML6010 is more in-line with what I was looking for as far as feature set and the pricing/performance specs are as good if not a little better than the Quantum PX502 (especially if you consider that with the DELL, our price includes the 3 Year BASIC hardware warranty). I also like their modular approach for possible future growth on the ML6000 line. But to be honest...the base 36 slots is probably way more than we will need before the product lives out it's life cycle for us. Only thing that the Quantum line had was that you could buy their PX50X stuff with the Ultra 160 LVD SCSI drive /interface and then install a fibre bridge option when ready to move it over to a fibre network. There were some advantages to this configuration like lower cost drives and flexibility to start out with it working over the LAN and being able to move it over to the FC network without a total reinvestment. But also I wondered about the performance one would give up bridging instead of using native FC. As far as I can see with the Dell ML6000, you choose wither LVD SCSI or FC configuration from the get go. Of course I haven't called Dell yet to confirm this. Anyway...thanks for bringing the PowerVault ML6000 line to my attention. Definitely worth a look and since your seeing impressive performance with the big brother of this line in your test environment, that is good to know. On a side note, another reason I was asking how prevalent the LTO-3 drives were on campus is because I am going to talk to Stores and see what they can start stocking the LTO-3 tapes. When we moved from DAT to DLT, we got them to stock the tapes. Over the years that worked out well because they could buy them in quantity and pass on the savings and ordering them from Stores was a lot less hassle (even with open orders and the procurement cards available). I want to approach them about doing the same with the LTO-3 tapes but haven't a clue how many people are using the LTO-3 stuff here on campus. Again, thanks for your feedback Tim. - Al -- =============================== Al Bray Systems Analyst University Services Michigan State University Phone: 517-355-0357 Ext. 161 Fax: 517-353-2024 email: [log in to unmask] >>> On 6/8/2006 at 1:33 pm, in message <[log in to unmask]>, "First, Tim" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > We're using a Dell Powervault 136T Library with five LTO-2 drives in it. > It has been performing pretty well, but we wear the picker out every > couple of months due to the number of tape mounts we do. We just > purchased a Dell ML6200 loaded with LTO-3 drives in it, which is > actually an ADIC i500. So far we're not running production on it yet, > but our tests have shown drastic performance improvements and the > hardware appears to be very impressive. > > BTW, we have a handful of stand alone LTO-1 Drives and a two drive > loader if anyone might be interested. I'm not sure what the process is, > but if someone were interested in buying them from us, we can find out > what that process has to be. > > -tim > > ________________________________ > Timothy D. First, MCSE > Information Technologist III > > Michigan State University > Administrative Information Services > > [log in to unmask] > (517) 353-4420 x335 > Fax: (517) 355-5176 > > -----Original Message----- > From: Al Bray [mailto:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 1:06 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: [MSUNAG] Backup Devices/Media > > We are currently re-evaluating not only our backup software, but also > the Library/Media we use as part of a SAN implementation we are > planning. > > Currently we are using and older one drive Dell PowerVault 120 DLTIV > (40/80gb) library that is barely cutting it today let alone when we > acquire the SAN and want to move the backup traffic off our LAN and on > to the Fibre Channel Network. > > Currently I am looking at the Quantum 502 Tape Library with one LTO-3 > Ultrium drive (400/800gb) because it seems to have pretty good features > for the price point when compared to some of the others. > > Just wondering how many people out there are using LTO-3 devices/media, > what manufacturer you went with and how it's performing for you. > > > Thanks for any feedback in advance. > > - Al