eStorage Offers New Dual-Drive LTO Ultrium 2 Tape Subsystem

by Alex Woodie

eStorage recently introduced a new dual-drive version of its Maxback LTO Ultrium 2 tape subsystem, which makes two copies of OS/400 data: one for sending to a secure off-site location and one that's kept onsite for fast data-recovery. In addition to the new dual-drive LTO Ultrium 2 subsystem, the company offers dual-drive versions with AIT-3 and LTO Ultrium 1 technologies.

As the need for comprehensive disaster-recovery plans continues to drive sales in the IT marketplace, iSeries storage supplier eStorage continues to roll-out new tape products designed to further insulate OS/400 shops from data loss.

"Our Maxback mirrored tape subsystems provide a simple and cost-effective method of ensuring that this data will not be lost in the event of natural disasters, theft, vandalism, or terrorist attacks," says John Gimpl, executive vice president with the Irvine, California, company. "And our Maxback subsystems complement IBM's tape offerings, since IBM does not offer a mirrored tape solution."

eStorage, which bought BCC Technologies' line of iSeries disk drives and tape drives, subsystems, and libraries in early 2003, currently offers three different dual-drive tape subsystems:

• The new Maxback 9580 Tape Subsystem with two LTO Ultrium 2 drives. The drives on this unit each support capacities of up to 400 GB per cartridge and transfer rates of up to 70 MB/sec (assuming 2:1 compression). eStorage's dual-drive LTO Ultrium 2 tape subsystem costs $16,000.
  
  
• The Maxback 9580 Tape Subsystem with two LTO Ultrium 1 tape drives. Each drive supports up to 200 GB of capacity and 30 MB/sec transfer rates (at 2:1 compression). The dual-drive LTO Ultrium 1 tape subsystem costs $13,000. Both of eStorage's LTO drives are OEM versions of IBM's drives and are compatible with IBM LTO media.
  
  
• The Maxback AIT-3 mirrored tape subsystem, with two drives supporting up to 300 GB of data and 36 MB/sec transfer rates each (assuming a 3:1 compression ratio). This dual-drive system costs $14,000. The backward read/write compatibility of Sony's Advanced Intelligent Tape technology makes it a favorite among customers who are concerned about future investments.

All of these drives feature a separate controller that copies data from the first drive to the second drive (which is included as part of the overall cost). Whereas older dual-drive systems would have shared a single connection to the OS/400 server, cutting the transfer rate in half, the "intelligent" SCSI controllers that eStorage ships with these drives do not have an adverse impact on the rate of data transfer from the OS/400 server to the dual-drive subsystem.

The eStorage controllers emulate IBM Magstar drives and subsystems (3570/3590), as well as other IBM protocols, which means that, under ideal conditions, with a super fast drive, transfer rates could hit 80 MB/second. However, none of these drives is capable of transferring data that fast. The capability to emulate IBM's drives still gives eStorage an advantage, as other providers of tape drives and host bus adapters do not have Magstar emulation and have to make due with less performance as they connect to the OS/400 server as a generic drive.

eStorage tape drives, subsystems, and libraries work with a range of common backup and recovery utilities for the OS/400. In addition to its dual-drive tape subsystems, eStorage helps companies to avoid losing data during a disaster with a high availability offering called CopyFlash, which combines data replication software, iSeries disk, and tape, if needed. CopyFlash is based on the *noMAX data replication software developed by Maximum Availability.

The new dual-drive Maxback LTO Ultrium 2 subsystem is available now, as are the dual-drive variants of its AIT-3 and LTO Ultrium 1 Maxback tape subsystems. For more information, go to www.estorageinc.com.

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