Ah yes, the qualstar Q24 library front panel looks identical to the BDT Flexstor 2U panel.
My Q24 library says it is a FlexStor II in the web GUI. BDT states they have around 70% market share in the tape library field. https://www.bdt.de/en/products-solutions/storage-automation/ Heh, Overland Tandberg states they have a 24 tape library they call the T24. Front panel also identical to the BDT FlexStor 2u library. I believe BDT might only sell to OEMs, and not directly sell their libraries. Overall, when selecting a library you're probably going to buy a BDT library regardless of whether it says BDT on the front or not. :) I'd say select a library based on price, and non-encumbrance with silly "pay us more to use the rest of your slots" licensing. Robert Gerber 402-237-8692 r...@craeon.net On Tue, Mar 19, 2024, 10:24 AM Rob Gerber <r...@craeon.net> wrote: > When reviewing our options we concluded that a tape changer was a small > additional cost compared to the cost of a tape drive. It also enabled > automatic tape handling. We are in the USA and purchased a Qualstar Q24 > library. The library is network connected and has room for 2 LTO drives. It > can use either FC or SAS, depending on the adapter you use in the library. > > The Q24 has a mail slot for tape import/export, but so far I've been > unable to find a way to use mtx to move tapes to or from the mail slot. The > only way to open or close the mail slot is the front console of the > library, from what I've seen. I can move tapes to/from the mail slot using > the changer web GUI. I am somewhat disappointed by this because I had hoped > to enable automated tape interchange workflows where a script moves a tape > from the mail slot, runs a job that deposits data to the tape, then ejects > the tape, moves it to mail slot, then ejects mail slot. An office staff > person removes the tape in the morning, places it into its case, and > inserts the next tape. If the tape isn't ejected, the staff person calls IT > since that means something went wrong. That workflow isn't possible to > automate as far as I can see because mtx cannot see or interact with the > mail slot. Not a huge deal, but something you might want to know. The > workflow I've described is more commonly used with a single tape drive and > no tape changer, but in the interest of air gapping as soon and as > regularly as possible in my opinion it's probably among the best practices > for routinely removing small single tape backup jobs from the changer. > > > If you want to do virtual full, copy, or migration jobs from LTO to LTO, > know that you'll need two LTO drives. For these job types there must be an > input device and an output device. Since you're already using bacula for > backup to disk volumes, I THINK you should be able to use the disk backup > as the input device and the LTO drive as an output device. In the case of > having a disk backup set and an LTO drive, I think you could find copy and > migration jobs useful since you could perhaps occasionally run off copy > jobs from your disk backups to tape, then remove your tape media from the > library. > > I have read about ransomware that automatically seeks out and attempts to > attack tape backup systems, over-writing tape media. You already mentioned > air gapping, but I must emphasize that actually removing backup media from > the changer is a very good practice in defense against that sort of threat. > > We selected SAS, primarily because we wanted to directly contact the > library to the tape drive, and because we didn't know anything substantial > about FC. FC also appeared to be more expensive. When considering SAS > adapters, we were informed by our backup hardware vendor that some SAS > adapters don't properly support tape communication. For that reason, an > ATTO SAS card was recommended. Our cost for that card was around $400 USD. > > Our vendor of choice was backupworks.com. I don't have a business > relationship with them or any incentive for recommending them. They've just > been really helpful in selecting hardware and their service has been good > as we ordered additional media. I believe they are usa based, so if you are > not then they might not be the vendor for you. > > I will note that some libraries in this space locked away the usage of > some slots and perhaps some features behind upgrade licenses. I didn't like > that idea at all, and didn't select such devices. I have been informed that > only a couple companies are still manufacturing tape drives, only ibm is > still researching new tape drive mechanisms. I believe the qualstar > libraries are actually manufactured in Europe, perhaps in Germany. I have > been told that the libraries are also being manufactured by one company and > rebadged elsewhere. Don't know if true. > > Because your goal is to air gap backups, definitely consider two things > regarding which drive you select: cost per TB, and cost per cartridge. As > of a while ago, LTO 8 media was $5 USD / TB (raw). I haven't checked LTO 9 > media recently, but I imagine it might be more per TB. Of course, cost per > cartridge might matter a lot if you have otherwise small backups, and if > you want to have many cartridges as part of a routine LTO export / data > versioning / air gap process. > > Robert Gerber > 402-237-8692 > r...@craeon.net > > On Tue, Mar 19, 2024, 9:35 AM Gary R. Schmidt <g...@mcleod-schmidt.id.au> > wrote: > >> On 20/03/2024 00:56, Anders Gustafsson wrote: >> > Hi! >> > >> > We used to use tape a long time ago. Then it was CA Arcserve for Linux, >> ran fine, but CA dropped the product >> > so we switched to Bacula and backing up to disk. The recent surges in >> ransom attacks has made us think of >> > airgapping again and even a resonably small LTO drive would work for >> our immediate needs. So the plan is to >> > get one, plus a SAS card and install in a separate PC and run the >> storage agent on it. At this point I am just >> > fishing for advice and pointers. As I see it, the PC does not even need >> to be server class and the SAS card >> > can be a humble 4-port HBA (Adaptec HBA 1100-4i ). Does this sound like >> a reasonable plan? Anything to watch >> > out for? >> > >> Unless you are running a small and static data set, go for FC rather >> than SAS, and an autoloader rather than just a drive. >> >> Cheers, >> Gary B-) >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Bacula-users mailing list >> Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users >> >
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