Hi, all. I'm looking into what choices folks have made for their tape drives, and why they picked what they did. I'm really happy with what I've got, but I figure that state is perpetuated by questioning it, rather than settling in.
I'm running 3590s (on the way out) and 3592s. The capacity is close to the top per-cartridge (500G raw per cart), and the speed is quite good, ~80GB/s. When we added the 1-gen 3592s a few years ago, seek speed was an important difference between that and the then current LTO2; I understand that LTO3 has made up some ground there but not all the way. My drives are getting a duty cycle approaching 100%; there are very few times of the day I don't have jobs waiting in line for them. My SE is kind of nervous about them; he says we're mean to them. :) I am given to understand that this kind of treatment tears LTO3s apart; they aren't designed for that kind of 24x7 usage. In a nutshell, I love my 3592s, I run them constantly and have essentially no maintenance issues with them. I've got some of them in a remote installation ~300 miles away, and run them with confidence, so far borne out. (8 months of production) So, any opinions? Love stories for LTO3 or that sun whatever-1000 ? Hate stories? - Allen S. Rout
