HP StorageWorks 1U SAS Rack Mount Kit (AE459B)

[CwebbSr]

I want to add a second Tape Drive to this unit. Do I need to add a second SAS controller or will the single SAS controller support two tape drives?

[Curtis Ballard]

The interface card in the AE459B supports 2 SAS devices in any combination of 6Gb, 3Gb, 1.5Gb.  The cable for the second drive should already be in the enclosure.

The second tape drive will be exposed on the second external port.  If you want both tape drives to connect to the same port on the same server then you will need a new cable, probably an AN975A.  The AN975A cable is 2M with mini-SAS connectors at both ends and connects up to 4 tape drives to a single external port on an HBA.

Another point to note if you are going to run multiple tape drives to the same server is that if you are using a P212/ZM controller you may want to consider getting the extra cache memory if you are going to tune for performance.  The P212/ZM will run 4 tape drives but without cache memory the performance drops a bit when you have multiple high performance devices running at the same time.  You have to have a pretty well tuned environment though before you will be able to push data fast enough to see that.

[CwebbSr]

Great job. You've been a big help. Thanks....................