-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Bartram [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 1999 12:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re[2]: DDS3 horror story...



>
>> 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.
>
Chris, I know when we first went to DLT's here it was a slight pain to
restore files. Sometimes it would take upwards to 4 to 6 hours to restore a
single file. Dam aggravating when you have a user sitting there waiting for
data. Once we applied the correct patch to Turbostore (and bought OEM DLT's
from HP) I have as of yet had any restore go more than 30 minutes from DLT
since that time (at least I can not recall any taking longer than that). Our
backups on the other hand do take quite the considerable about of time but
with close to 140Gigs of data (Weekend full backups run about 5 to 7 hours
going on to two tapes run in parallel).

>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
>
Yes the DLT's are expensive but they are coming down in price. When I first
started here (Maritz) as a computer operator the price for a single
cartridge from my vendor was about $83 (US) a tape. I now have two vendors
in a price war and have driven the price down to $64 a tape (Fuji's). If you
can make the case to go to DLT I would. It might be an a high initial
investment but I think the reliability is worth it.

Max...



Max Slover
Computer Operator
Maritz Marketing Research
St. Louis MO.


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