MSL5030 Replacement Ultrium 1 -> 3 ?

[ICT Operations SD]

Hi,

We have a MSL 5030 device which has 2 Ultrium 1 (230) drives and I want to replace them with Ultrium 3 (960) drives, can anyone tell me if that is possible ?

thanks

[Luk Vandenbussche]

Physicaly it is possible.

But be aware that LTO-3 is only supported on fiber in an MSL, so optionaly you may need a fiber controller in your library also.
I fiber controller is necessary for each drive.

It may be better to replace the complete MSL5030 by a MSL6030 there are good promo's for the moment.

[Scott McIntosh_2]

The replacement Ultrium960 drive for existing MSL5000 and MSL6000 libraries is AD612A. So check with whoever you buy from regarding that product number.

The drives have Ultra160 aka Ultra3 SCSI connections versus Ultra2 for the Ultrium-1. Make sure you have only one drive per Ultra160 or two per Ultra320 SCSI bus from the hosts. Or use the e1200-160 NSR (if you already have one, it's likely just the e1200 and won't cut it for hosting Ultrium960). Only one drive per NSR and make sure it's running 2Gbps mode, not just 1Gbps. And don't try to drive two drives over a single fibre connection from a single host. Unless all you're looking for is the capacity improvement rather than a performance improvement. Ultrium-3 can slow down to 27MB/s avearage post-compression.

If you're sustainging the full 30MB/s post-compression rate to the Ultrium-1 drive, you should be filling a complete tape in about an hour. If not, you're not sustaining 30MB/s post-compression and you're not likely going to sustain at least 27MB/s with Ultrium960, which means lots of repositioning and drive wear. But I don't do tape drives for a living, so I could be wrong. :-)

Thanks,
Scott
HP Support