Tandberg Storage Loader LTO2 Autoloader

Backup of important electronic data forms the backbone of
every IT infrastructure. Therefore, every organization, big or small, uses one
or the other back-up solution for the job. Still enterprises prefer to back up
their offline data on tapes because that way, they can store huge amounts of
data at a lower cost per GB.

Price: Rs 2,98,000

Meant For: Mid-sized businesses

Key Specs: Has two magazines that can take four LTO-II tape cartridges in each magazine and gives you 3.2 TB offline data storage

Pros: Built-in Ethernet for remote management

Cons: None

Contact: Manish Mehta, Sales Manager, North India, Tandberg AsiaTel: 919810502321

Tandberg Storage Loader is a 1U RACK LTO auto-tape loader
meant for small and medium sized organizations. It allows you to back up up to
3.2 TB (compressed) data. The device has one tape drive and can take eight LTO-2
tape cartridges. It runs on 420LTO (a writing technology where the data is
written in a linear fashion) technology. The LTO-2 tape media cartridge costs Rs
2,450. This  means that it costs
around Rs 12 to autoload 1 GB (native) of data.

The Autoloader has two ultra 160/ LVD interfaces, and
connects directly to the server via an SCSI cable. It has two magazines on front
left and front right side of the device, and each magazine can take four tape
cartridges. The device has an LCD display on the front panel.

Here with use of the four buttons given on four corners of
the LCD screen; you can manage the tape cartridges

manually. Magazine can be ejected through the LCD user interface. Plus there is
an emergency-eject facility for the magazines in case of power failure.
Convenient labeling of the eight data cartridges in two magazines provides
labeled media and controlled storage for quick, convenient and accurate off-site
storage. The device comes in two models-with bar code or without bar code. Bar
code allows back-up software to manage the tape cartridges efficiently. Plus it
also has a one built-in Ethernet port, which lets the administrator manage the
device remotely using a web browser. The device is backward compatible and can
take LTO-1 cartridges also.

To test this Autoloader, we created a typical backup
scenario, where users keep their important data on a file server. While testing,
the drive had only three LTO-2 tape cartridges and all the cartridges were
outside the drive but inside the magazine.

We tested the device with IBM Xserver (running WinServe
2003 Standard) and connected the Autoloader via SCSI cable. When switched on,
the device performed a sequence of diagnostic tests called POST (Power-On Self
Tests). This POST also

includes a loop-back test of the robot cabling. After this, the unit responds to
SCSI selections. Then the system does initialization. This process consists of
robot-calibration operation and cartridge

inventory of tape cartridges present in the

magazines. If a bar-code reader is installed and enabled, the bar-code labels on
the cartridges will be read when running inventory. During all these operations
the device will continuously show status of the tape cartridges and shows the
map status on the LCD screen. Initially the status shows that all magazine slots
and the drive are unknown, and displays a '?' (interrogation mark) for each
slot. As the robot searches the magazine slots for cartridges during inventory,
the display is updated on the LCD screen.

All this takes 5 minutes with three tapes, but this time
can be more if you have more tape cartridges
For taking the backup, we used the Windows 2003 back-up tool. We used
nearly 65 GB of data with includes DOC files, music files, movie files and few
ISO CD images.

The device took around 48 min 6 secs to back up this data
(native form) at a transfer rate of 23 MB/s, which is one MB less than the rated
throughput that is 24 MB/s.  We also
took the backup with hardware compression. It took 25 mins 2 secs to transfer 65
GB of data onto LTO2 tape-a data rate of 44 MB/s versus the rated 48 MB/s.
When restoring it, the process was smooth and upto the mark.

Bottom Line: This autoloading device is worth buying
for small to mid-sized businesses.

Sanjay Majumder