External LTO Drive with Ultra SCSI

The HP SureStore Ultrium 230 is a single external LTO (Linear Tape Open) drive with Ultra SCSI interface. An Ultrium cartridge can store 200 GB compressed (100 GB native). The drive has drivers for Win NT 4/2000, Novell NetWare 5/5.1

 and Unix. It comes with its own backup software, but is also compatible with third party applications. 

The drive was compact and easy-to-install and set up. It comes with a 68-pin high density SCSI cable, to be connected to your system’s SCSI card. Install the requisite drivers and you’re ready to go. Loading and unloading the cartridge doesn’t take very long, and the cartridge is ready for use the moment you insert it. We tested it using the default backup software that comes with Win 2K. It took 27 min to back up 6.85 GB of data and 24 min 23 sec to restore it back to the hard drive. 

The drive ships with an operating manual, TapeAlert and Tape tools with manuals, the drivers, a SCSI cable, an Ultrium 200 GB tape drive and cleaning cartridge that should be used only when the ‘use cleaning cartridge’ LED starts flashing on the drive’s front panel.

The bottom line: It’s a well-performing drive for taking comprehensive backups of your critical company data. Given the cartridge capacity, speed, and ease of setup, it’s well worth the price. 

Neelima Vaid at PCQ Labs