topic Re: Automate cold storage with tape library- Query Id: #26933 in StoreEver Tape Storage

Automate cold storage with tape library

jontm09 — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 14:14:53 GMT

Hi!

New to tape. Looking for a solution to automate cold storage of data as much as possible. Will a tape library be able to backup a network share that is larger than it is able to store on tape at any given time ? Let's say that i need 50 LTO8 tapes to store my data, would it be possible to load in 24 tapes in a library, then when the tape library is full, change out the 24 tapes for 24 more tapes and so on untill the backup job is complete ?

I do not need access to the data, unless for disaster recovery. The tapes would be stored safely in a box on site.

Just having one drive and changing out the tape myself when full would take up too much of my time when filling that many tapes, but if i can load up like 8-12 at the time or more and just get a prompt when i need to add more tapes that would be fine. Since this is cold storage, it is preferable for me to not have a large tape library box that can fit all the tapes at once since i am going to empty it anyway.

Re: Automate cold storage with tape library- Query Id: #26933

pragav — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 14:37:14 GMT

Hi jontm09,
Yes you could backup data of the network share to the tape drive.
In the HPE storage portfolio there are tape library models available that can load 24 tapes in a single unit with LTO8 generation tapes support.
Furthermore, if you would like to discuss on the technical front please share your contact details via private message. Thank you,

Re: Automate cold storage with tape library

Mortos — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 18:42:45 GMT

There are tool to do that, in some of them you can define a set of tapes as a group and it will automatically chose the next tape when the first is full.

I am also just trying to find the best soution for our case... which is kinda similar. I wanna store more data then it can fit on 1 tape, and that possibly automatic. Not sure if this helps you, but it seems so far that my solution will be linux with ltfs.

Since there is a command for controlling the robotic arm (mtx) I can easily write scripts that will automate the whole process and move data ober a 10Gig connection from the Server to the Tape.