Ultrium 460 tape drive compatible with Proliant 3000 6/550

[Joe Keegan_1]

Does anybody know it the 460 Tape drive external is compatible with the proliant 3000 6/550 server - I know that this is an old server so if nobody knows does anyone know if I buy this tape drive & say it doesn't work can I buy a SCSI controller to allow it work ???

[Dave Dewar]

Hi,

While the 3000 6/550 is not on our compatibility list

http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/compatibility/tapebackup/servers/index.html

It should work with an external Ultrium 460 product. It appears to have an Ultra3 scsi controller. I would recommend that you buy an adaptec 29160 for the tape drive though so it has its own scsi controller.

Do not expect Ultrium 460 performance though. If you server does not have a fast RAID then you will not be able to get data off disk fast enough to keep the 460 happy.

You could try our performance troubleshooting guide at:

http://www.hp.com/cposupport/information_storage/support_doc/lpg50460.html

There is one tool referenced on here called PAT that allows you to check disk access speeds. See the tools link at the end of the guide.

Cheers,

Dave Dewar.

[Joe Keegan_1]

That is great information - just one more question :

I may not get the speeds but will the drive work with the scsi card (if i buy one) the reason being is that we are upgrading are server at the end of the year anyhow - so even if I only get half the rated speed I would be happy for now ...

Yours

Joe Keegan

[Dave Dewar]

Hi,

It should do. The 29160 is the card we recommend for the 460. Your server has 5 PCI slots I think and so it should take the 29160 no problem. The 29160 is a 64bit PCI card, but it will fit into a 32bit slot as well.

It should just be a matter of putting in the card, connecting up the tape drive and rebooting and letting your OS detect everything.

If you need drivers and support tools. Try this link:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?pnameOID=238685&locale=en_US&taskId=135&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=238671&submit.y=10&submit.x=3&cc=us

We have a tool called LTT (library and tape tools) that is supported on many operating systems that you can load up and use to check your installation, check the health of your drive, upgrade firmware and generate support tickets for support personnel to solve your issues. The above link has this tool.

When you have it installed I would recommend you go through the performance troubleshooting guide to ensure you are getting the best out of your drive.

Cheers,

Dave Dewar.

[Ron Sutton]

Hi,

I have one running on a ProLiant 6/333 with a U160 HBA, and yes performance is not good because of the disk system. A better match is the newer ML or DL servers. Of course you can always upgrade your server latter. You can order the HBA from the HP web site too. The U320's are out and they work fine at about the same price.

Ron Sutton