Re: Virtual tape - size and saving

I could ask you more questions but really it comes down to asking your BP
what would 'work' and what could be done with what you have. For example,
WRKHDWRSC *STG and what kind of controller is driving that tape drive.
Could it drive a LTO 3? Could you get two of them to drive two different
tape drives in the same tape library? If you already have a SAN switch
(or are looking at one) is now the time to consider going fiber instead?

For example you could get a 3573-L2U with two drives but I think the
lowest you could go is LTO3. This will read and write LTO2 tapes but
would only read LTO1. LTO3 tapes would give you more capacity and speed.
That's another consideration, moving to newer generation LTO tapes could
reduce your backup window. Somewhere there's a speed comparison chart.
IDK if you're still fitting everything on one LTO2 tape but the newer ones
also hold more. Used LTO3 tapes are pretty cheap - I should know as we've
recently sold a few hundred on the used market. There you go, save to the
faster LTO3 and dup to the LTO2's for offsite? And when you do DUPMEDBRM
then WRKOBJBRM will show you both the original tape holding the data and
the duplicate media.



Rob Berendt