Andy, John D. and Mario raised good points. As for our VTL environment, we have a blend of IBM TS7520/7510 (3955 & 3954 Machine Types). We make use of "expandable" virtual volumes with an initial size of 5G and a max size of 60G and it works well in my opinion. With Compression enabled, we get more out of each VTL volume without exposing ourselves to extremely long migrations, backups of the storage pools and other administrative processes.
As a side note, the intersection between TSM and the VTL is a bit tricky, for instance, though we defined VTL volumes with a max size of 60G in the Virtual Engine for Tape Console, we get a different estimated capacity once the virtual volume are checked in TSM and being written to. See below for illustration. Volume Name Storage Device Estimated Pct Volume Pool Name Class Name Capacity Util Status ------------------------ ----------- ---------- --------- ----- -------- X40025 P_USER_VTL VTL2 126.5 G 91.1 Full X40050 P_USER_VTL VTL2 180.0 G 14.8 Filling BERTAUT TCHUISE Storage Support Administrator Legg Mason Technology Services *410-580-7032 btchu...@leggmason.com -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ads...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Huebner,Andy,FORT WORTH,IT Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2009 10:36 AM To: ADSM-L@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: [ADSM-L] VTL Tape Size We are about to bring up new TSM servers and one of questions that has come up is how big to make the VTL tapes? We currently use 100GG and have tried 10GB with our test server. The question is what size it popular and why? Andy Huebner This e-mail (including any attachments) is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you are not an intended recipient or an authorized representative of an intended recipient, you are prohibited from using, copying or distributing the information in this e-mail or its attachments. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies of this message and any attachments. Thank you. IMPORTANT: E-mail sent through the Internet is not secure. Legg Mason therefore recommends that you do not send any confidential or sensitive information to us via electronic mail, including social security numbers, account numbers, or personal identification numbers. Delivery, and or timely delivery of Internet mail is not guaranteed. Legg Mason therefore recommends that you do not send time sensitive or action-oriented messages to us via electronic mail. This message is intended for the addressee only and may contain privileged or confidential information. Unless you are the intended recipient, you may not use, copy or disclose to anyone any information contained in this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the author by replying to this message and then kindly delete the message. Thank you.