[SunRescue] Re: Spectra Logic Bullfrog

[Gregory Leblanc]

On 27 Apr 2001 15:18:50 -0700, Robert Novak wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Apr 2001 nick at snowman.net wrote:
> 
> > I'm not sure how many ppl here are intrested in tape libraries, however I
> > just picked up a 4 drive AIT1 changer cheap, and am wondering if anyone
> > has experience with them?  If so what backup programs are suggested, and
> > what/where would ppl recommend picking up media?
> 
> Sounds like a yummy device. Dare I ask how cheap? And do they have any
> more? :-)
> 
> AIT media is a bit expensive (I use 230m AIT2 at work, $80/tape for
> 50/125GB capacity) but it's easy to find. shopper.cnet.com shows pricing
> as low as $50 for 25/50GB, $66 for 35/70GB. See

Are the 230m AIT-22 tapes the same as the AIT-1 tapes?  I've got
"SDX1-35C" as the number on my 230m/35GB tapes.

> I'm not too aware of AIT-1 (went straight to AIT-2 here at work and I'm
> still Metal Particle at home) but I suspect the SDX-300 and SDX-500 drives
> have similar compression firmware. When I first saw the spec of 2.5:1
> compression I figured it was highly hypothetical, but having used the
> AIT-2 drives since September I can say I consistently see 110GB and up on
> the 50GB native tapes with drive compression--often 115-120GB. Don't waste
> the time on software compression on your backup server if AIT-1 is
> similar.

Hmm, I'm running an SDX-300C, and I get about 46GB onto one of the above
35GB tapes.  This is a backup of quite a few NT server's OS drives, 2 MS
Exchange databases, a few GB of compressed GHOST disk images, and the
final dozen GB taken up by user documents, mostly Word and PowerPoint.
I'm not sure how that compares to what typically get's backed up on your
machines, but a lot of the data I backup isn't very compressible.  

> I believe most/all of the backup software vendors will let you evaluate
> their product for a month, so if you want to test out the changer with
> high-test backup software, you can probably download 30-day eval copies
> from www.legato.com or www.veritas.com or thereabouts. I'll probably do
> this with the 8mm library I have coming in soon.

Do you folks just discover these on ebay, or what?  I managed to borrow
a 2GB DDS2 drive from work, and while it holds 2GB, but it takes ane
entire night to fill the tape using GNU tar, with the drive hooked to a
3940UW.  I've got about that much stuff just in my user directory, so
I'm browsing around for something faster, bigger, better...  

    Greg

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