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Re: What tape library drivers to use?

 
erdah
Occasional Contributor

What tape library drivers to use?

Hi,

 

Data Protector Express + IBM TS3100 tape library via FC.

 

Currently I have not installed any particular drivers for the library. When looking in Device Manager I can see that the library and tape device are using standard Microsoft drivers. Backups are running fine and I get ~ 8 Gb/min throughput on large files.

 

Should I install the IBM drivers to get even better throughput? And in that case should I install the exclusive or non-exclusive drivers?

 

Regards, Erik

3 REPLIES 3
thomasr
Respected Contributor

Re: What tape library drivers to use?

You've got a single tape drive?   My math tells me that 8GB/min is 130MB/second... this is pretty

darned good performance.  I'd be inclined to leave things alone for fear of making them worse!

 

(This is especially since you don't say what kind of tape drive you have, nor what compression

you see in your backups-to-tape, nor what speed your file system is capable of delivering for

backup jobs (and most people's disk subsystem isn't capable of delivering the 133MB/sec

sustained throughput that you're getting).)

 

 

--
Liberty breeds responsibility; Government breeds dependence
erdah
Occasional Contributor

Re: What tape library drivers to use?

Thanks for the answer.

 

Here's some more facts:

 

HP DP Express installed on HP X1400 G2 8TB. All data to be backed up resides locally on this NAS. The NAS is point-to-point connected to the tape library via FC (HP 42B 4Gb/s HBA). I don't know the speed of the disk system.

 

Tape Drive: IBM ULT3580-TD4

IO Buffer Size: 32MB

The backup job I was talking about backed up 2485 pcs of TIF images (76.25 GB).

Compression: 2.2:1

 

 

 

thomasr
Respected Contributor

Re: What tape library drivers to use?

Just my 'feeling', but I think that's reasonable performance from that system.  I don't think you'll see much difference one way or the other with different drivers.

--
Liberty breeds responsibility; Government breeds dependence