Tape Backup Software

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Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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Hm, wondering whether thats Half Height or Full Height ...
I had thought a 5,25" drive size would be full height, but there is no full height adapter available (thinking of slim dvd drives probably :))
The Fullheight adapter seems to be 2U so I now think 1U~=5,25" might be Half Height after all which matches the ID found ...
HH SAS – ATP1/00WF767 would be the caddy I need then.
Edit: Hm this seems to be the drive + caddy. Not sure how to identify the FRU for the caddy alone yet;)
 

Terry Kennedy

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Jun 25, 2015
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Hm, wondering whether thats Half Height or Full Height ...
Your drive is half height. At one time full-height drives had a speed advantage, but not so much any more.
HH SAS – ATP1/00WF767 would be the caddy I need then.
Edit: Hm this seems to be the drive + caddy. Not sure how to identify the FRU for the caddy alone yet;)
You just need to look on eBay and wait for one to come around. As an example of the type you need (but not the correct model for you), look at:

HP LTO5 Ultrium 3000 SAS Tray for MSL2024 MSL4048 G2 NO DRIVE

In general, there will be a big square black sticker on the back of the caddy saying something like "L6" for LTO6. A bunch of them are interchangeable between different LTO generations. The caddys come in FC (Fiber Channel) which you don't want, and as single- or dual-port SAS. Some have the diagnostic Ethernet brought out from the drive to the caddy rear panel. Probably the biggest concern is getting a caddy where the external fan lines up with your drive's fan.

On the other hand, this whole business may be overkill. LTO7 holds 6 TB native (more if the data can be compressed), and if you don't mind swapping tapes, you could just run it as an internal or external drive. There are lots of external cases where the drive has been removed. This one has both dual-port SAS and the Ethernet diagnostic port:

DELL / IBM LTO3 , LTO4, LTO5 ENCLOSURE With POWER SUPPLY No Drive
 

Rand__

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Thanks.
My biggest concern would be whether I could leave the tape in the drive or whether I'd need to remove it every time after a backup (inconvenient). I would assume this would be covered by a TL.

The drive has no (rj45) ethernet connector, would that be supplied by the caddy then? Via one of the two non sas connectors on the back of the drive?
 

Terry Kennedy

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My biggest concern would be whether I could leave the tape in the drive or whether I'd need to remove it every time after a backup (inconvenient). I would assume this would be covered by a TL.
That would depend on whether your backup software did a rewind or a rewind+offline (the former leaves the tape at BOT, the latter ejects it). There are SCSI commands to have the drive load a previously-ejected tape. Note: If you try this by hand, don't just try to push the tape back in - pull it out another 1/2" or so and then push it back to where it stops. The drive will do the rest of the load cycle itself.
The drive has no (rj45) ethernet connector, would that be supplied by the caddy then? Via one of the two non sas connectors on the back of the drive?
If the drive has it, it will be on one of the other connectors on the back of the drive. It is mostly for service use (you don't get anything neat like iSCSI on it).
 

Rand__

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Ok, so is dust and heat a reason to remove the tape after a backup or is it fine to be left in the drive?
Never had a LTO drive before and my last exposure to tape a *long* while back left the actual tape exposed to the environment which I'd prefer not to have if I have critical data on it:)
 

Terry Kennedy

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Jun 25, 2015
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Ok, so is dust and heat a reason to remove the tape after a backup or is it fine to be left in the drive?
Never had a LTO drive before and my last exposure to tape a *long* while back left the actual tape exposed to the environment which I'd prefer not to have if I have critical data on it:)
The tape is fully rewound into the cartridge and the cartridge door is shut (unlike DLT/SDLT where the door is open until the tape is removed). I suspect there's about as much dust infiltration into the drive guts with a tape there vs. just the drive's door flap.
 
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NISMO1968

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You can iSCSI-ize the drive by something like Tape Redirector if you need to access it from inside a VM (we run our Veeam backups virtualized, never bare metal) or from another host.

Thanks.
My biggest concern would be whether I could leave the tape in the drive or whether I'd need to remove it every time after a backup (inconvenient). I would assume this would be covered by a TL.

The drive has no (rj45) ethernet connector, would that be supplied by the caddy then? Via one of the two non sas connectors on the back of the drive?
 

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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Nah, not a cloud person ;)
Atm I am looking a Iperius Backup which hopefully will fully support vCenter based backups in 5.0 (due in a couple of weeks).
I moved away from the classical tools since I dont need distributed backups (on client), just need vm's and smb shares.
Atm I have not centralised user directories yet, but all important stuff should be on the central filer, so simple enough to backup.
Just waiting for external case for the tape.

And some tape drives are quite cheap - if you don't mind changing tapes LTO 4 might be viable
 

Net-Runner

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Feb 25, 2016
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There are indeed, but you still have to buy tapes and store them somewhere appropriately (fire protected vault etc.) and separated from the main location which all eats time, effort and money.
 

Net-Runner

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Right :) Or having two additional copies of data in AWS and Azure along with regular (most recent) backups on premise. Hopefully will work for me. As long as the files are in Blob/Glacier or whatever they call this "cold storage" stuff this setup will not suck out all of my IT budget.