> So far, I'd recommend it over anything else (unless you're 
> willing to pay
> for an AIT drive; which supposedly offers better file seeking 
> speed, tho at
> +$1000 in price).

I love AIT.  If you're buying it for home use though, AIT is probably too
expensive.  Transfer speeds are very fast though.  I have a 40 tape AIT
changer set up as nearline storage on a Sun E3500, basically, it acts like a
4TB disk.  I have a 36GB disk cache, and when the cache gets above 80% full,
it starts archiving to tape.  I can copy files onto the disk cache, and they
go to tape almost as fast as I can copy them.  It takes about a day of
copying to actually get the cache to sneak up to 100% full.  When I access a
file that has been archived, the changer can load it and find it in under a
minute usually.  AIT is fast.  But the changer was nearly $30k, and tapes
are around $100 each (50GB uncompressed, 100GB avg compressed).

Jay

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom [mailto:chrome at real-time.com]
> Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2001 3:42 PM
> To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org
> Subject: VXA tape drives (was:Re: [TCLUG] Burners)
> 
> 
> > Anyone have good recommendations on these or other?  I'm 
> also looking at
> > getting a tape backup.  I've been looking  at the VXA 
> systems, anyone
> > have experience with these things?  Or is there a 
> comparable unit out
> > there that doesn't cost $900 for a 66GB BU system?
> 
> We've got a VXA drive here at work. I've only used it a few 
> dozen times;
> but so far I've been *very* happy with it. it's fast, it doesn't spew
> hardware errors to the logs (like lots of DAT and Travan 
> drives); and seems
> to be of reasonably solid construction (both tapes and drive).
> 
> downside is that the tapes are $80/ea.
> 
> So far, I'd recommend it over anything else (unless you're 
> willing to pay
> for an AIT drive; which supposedly offers better file seeking 
> speed, tho at
> +$1000 in price).
> 
> Carl Soderstrom
> -- 
> Network Engineer
> Real-Time Enterprises
> (952) 943-8700
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