benefits of buying a new DLT

[Alan Casey]

We have a very old Quantum DLT drive about 6 years old.

We want to buy a new DLT, and need to know what benefits there will be from this, and specifically if there will be an increase in the speed of reading + writing to tape and the compression rate.

[Ted Ellis_2 · Accepted solution]

the answer to you question is that it depends. If you want the DLT's written on your old drive to be usable with the new, I think your best bet is the DLT8000 drive. If, for example, your old drive is DLT4000, then you may see a nice improvement in writing to the new drive. The issue is that it also depends on the server hardware that this drive is connected to. The DLT8000 is rated for 40 GB uncompressed and 80 GB compressed (2:1 ratio). Here are some specs for the HP DLT 80

Product Description: HP SureStore DLT 80E - tape drive - DLT - SCSI
Device Type: Tape drive DLT
Enclosure Type: Storage cabinet
Dimensions (WxDxH): 6.9 in x 12.8 in x 6.3 in
Weight: 14.6 lbs
Localization: English / United States
Capacity: 40 GB (native) / 80 GB (compressed)
Interface Type: SCSI
Native / Burst Data Transfer Rate: 6 MBps / 12 MBps
Media Type: DLT

I see DLT 4000 drive specs with 1.5 / 4 MBps data transfer rates. Be a good idea to do some research on your options. We have upgraded to Ultrium tapes and simply keep an older DLT drive on hand to handle reading the older tapes. You have a lot of options... and make sure you check the base system out... to get the best transfer rates to the drive, the system has to be able to stream data to the drive at a high enough rate

Ted

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi
You can't expect a better compression ratio with a new DLT drive (DLT8000), the compression algorithm is the same. But a DLT8000 will store twice as much data on the same cartridge (as a DLT4000).

The DLT8000 is much faster, 3-4 times. If you can take advantage of this depends on if your disk system and other components is fast enough.

One problem can be IF uou can't send data fast enough to stream the drive. In this case the drive has to stsrt and stop frequentli, this slow doown even more and increases wear.

An alternative is the DLT vs80. This drive stores as much data as the DLT8000 but is not as fast (6MB/s MAX) and it is cheaper. But, there can be a problem with this drive if you want to use tapes which has been used in your DLT4000 drive before.