I recently had a Dell DLT autoloader die on me and had to replace the
system.  I had hoped the trends of tape backup systems and software
would have improved with time no such luck.

I purchased an Exabyte Magnum 1x7 LTO 3 autoloader to replace the old
Dell drive and to give us more backup capacity.  If you are not
familiar with this very expensive little gem, it may be because it is
fairly new or it may be because you looked and the $7k price tag and
moved on.

We have been running Veritas Backup Exec for a few years and I have no
real complaints.  It works well and hopefully you will never need tech
support.

Here are a few things that I have run across that distrub me:

1.  Device Drivers for most tape systems are still aquired from backup
software companies who have nothing to do with the tape systems.  What
happened to plug and play advancements?

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

2.  tech support for manufacturers is disapearing and the problems with
their stuff is increasing.

It looks as if I will have to wait for new drivers to be produced and
some very expensive hardware will have to sit around till the drivers
are ready.  Unfortunately, Veritas and Exabyte have no email suppprt
for US customers and they are closed over the holiday when we are
trying to get some network system work done.  High end products often
provide the same poor quality support as the cheap junk.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

tx51210@swbell.net wrote:
> I recently had a Dell DLT autoloader die on me and had to replace the
> system.  I had hoped the trends of tape backup systems and software
> would have improved with time no such luck.
>
> I purchased an Exabyte Magnum 1x7 LTO 3 autoloader to replace the old
> Dell drive and to give us more backup capacity.  If you are not
> familiar with this very expensive little gem, it may be because it is
> fairly new or it may be because you looked and the $7k price tag and
> moved on.
>
> We have been running Veritas Backup Exec for a few years and I have no
> real complaints.  It works well and hopefully you will never need tech
> support.
>
> Here are a few things that I have run across that distrub me:
>
> 1.  Device Drivers for most tape systems are still aquired from backup
> software companies who have nothing to do with the tape systems.  What
> happened to plug and play advancements?

Sad to hear about that Dell autoloader. Care to share how old and the
model?

Not sure I follow you on the plug and play driver. I would rather have
a tape driver optimized for my backup application from the backup
company than a generic one  from the OS company.

However, if it works well who provides the driver  becomes a moot
point, IMO.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

tx51210@swbell.net wrote:
> 2.  tech support for manufacturers is disapearing and the problems with
> their stuff is increasing.
>
> It looks as if I will have to wait for new drivers to be produced and
> some very expensive hardware will have to sit around till the drivers
> are ready.  Unfortunately, Veritas and Exabyte have no email suppprt
> for US customers and they are closed over the holiday when we are
> trying to get some network system work done.  High end products often
> provide the same poor quality support as the cheap junk.

Are you saying that Veritas BE doesn't have a driver for the Magnum?
That's odd, that autoloader has been around for a while.

Anyway if it's true I understand your comment about  plug&play in the
previous message. It's a bummer finding out after buying the stuff...

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

"Spindle" <arthedge@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1125967386.600272.120220@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
> tx51210@swbell.net wrote: 
>
> Are you saying that Veritas BE doesn't have a driver for the Magnum?
> That's odd, that autoloader has been around for a while.
>
> Anyway if it's true I understand your comment about  plug&play in the
> previous message. It's a bummer finding out after buying the stuff...
>

I'll ask around to see if Veritas BE supports the Magnum. If not, then it's
usually quite easy to make an Exabyte library emulate an earlier model that
the software does know about. Note that it's the software vendor that needs
to add support for a particular library, and there's little that a hardware
vendor can do to make that happen (besides forking over a lot of money..).
You can also select other backup software that supports the Magnum, such as
Bakbone's NetVault.

As for support, if you value 24x7 availability then your best bet is to get
a support contract. That's what your server vendor asks you to do, so why
would any other hardware vendor be different?

Rob

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

> Not sure I follow you on the plug and play driver. I would rather have
> a tape driver optimized for my backup application from the backup
> company than a generic one  from the OS company.

In Windows, the only goal of the tape driver is to convert the tape IOCTLs t
o
SCSI CDBs. I suspect same is in UNIXen.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
maxim@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

"Maxim S. Shatskih" <maxim@storagecraft.com> writes:
 
>
> In Windows, the only goal of the tape driver is to convert the tape
> IOCTLs to SCSI CDBs. I suspect same is in UNIXen.

Personally I would only buy tape drives that were SCSI (if I had the
choice, which isn't always true because of budgetary and political
reasons). The commands are standardized for both tape drives and
changers / robots with SCSI and it's a lot less hassle.

--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

> > In Windows, the only goal of the tape driver is to convert the tape 
>
> Personally I would only buy tape drives that were SCSI (if I had the
> choice, which isn't always true because of budgetary and political
> reasons). The commands are standardized for both tape drives and
> changers / robots with SCSI and it's a lot less hassle.

Yes, but there are subtle differences, and thus the need in a tape driver -
which is a translator from IOCTLs to SCSI commands.

Some backup software can issue its own raw SCSI commands and thus bypass the
OS's tape driver (but not the OS's SCSI stack).

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
maxim@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

"Maxim S. Shatskih" <maxim@storagecraft.com> writes:
> Yes, but there are subtle differences, and thus the need in a tape driver 
-
> which is a translator from IOCTLs to SCSI commands.

Right.  Also, many interesting features are often vendor-unique; for
instance, accessing the MIC in AIT tapes, managing WORM tapes, or
handling pass-thru ports between tape libraries.  So either the tape
driver or a module in the backup (or other tape-using) software needs
to know a bit more about the hardware than the OS vendor is likely to
be interested in providing/verifying.

Anton

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