In <[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] writes:

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> From my understanding, tape drives are not supported by predictive.  Went
> round and round about this with HP (actually regarding a SureStore jukebox,
> but also tape drives).  Their reasoning - tapes are temporary media, so they
> don't want to report errors on them.  I guess their logic is who cares about
> the mechanics of the drive itself.

yes, I got an answer from someone at HPRC the other day to the effect of "tape
drives generate so many i/i errors anyway that they don't monitor them via
predictive"...

> As far as the DLTs (either 4000 or 7000) we use them here and like them VERY
> much.  Of course the tapes cost 3-4 times what 125m DDS-3 tapes were
> costing, but much more reliable.  Have only had one be marked as bad in my
> initial 1200 tape library.
>
> Only problem as I see it, is that they don't restore as fast as they write.
> Supposedly, HP released a patch that would take care of that problem on
> labeled tapes, but since we don't use labeled tapes on our backups, I
> haven't tested it.  Not terribly worried about it.  One of the other support
> people here did a restore of a single file from a DLT7000 backup.  Backup
> took 1 1/2 hours to store (few thousand files), and 1 1/2 hours to restore
> single file.  Since we only do a small amount of restores, it isn't a
> problem.  The reliablity of the tapes is more than worth it.

That's what I heard, and makes them unusable for us. Backups on DDS3 take
close to 8 hours, and we do regularly have to restore files from them... Just
wish we had tried it a few weeks ago! 8 hours to restore a single file is
pretty useless.

From the specs, DLT4000s wouldn't seem to buy us much time or media savings
(just perhaps that RELIABILITY thing!)... If we were going to make the "leap"
to DLT, I'd really like to be able to show a time or media savings... not
just "we need to switch 'cause those two umpteen-thousand-dollar DDS3 drives
are causing us to lose data'. Doesn't sound good for us, nor does it make the
powers-that-pay feel very inclined to spend $50k+ to outfit us with DLTs
(dual drives and media). I can hear it now; "HP's DDS3 drives are unreliable,
so you want us to spend another $50k to buy HP DLTs?!?!?" (I know HP doesn't
manufacture the DLTs, but you get the idea.)

            -Chris Bartram