hard disks / optical media) and “SCSI emulation” (less used devices i.e. Traditionally USB to SCSI adapters had two modes: “Mass storage” (most common use cases i.e. Option 1: Adapting SAS to USBĮdit: Since I first published this, it occurred to me that the product I mention below may not be suitable for LTO tape drives. From 7 onward, HP drives are re-branded IBM drives deployed in HP’s traditional black plastic chassis. This is because the last generation of drive made by HP was LTO-6. Side note: I have made several references to “LTO-6 and earlier” here. Complicated chassis design must be dismantled in a very specific way to avoid breaking internal plastic clips.Outer plastic chassis not as robust as IBM drive (there is also an inner metal chassis).If you use the drive a lot – this is going to piss you off. LTO-6 and earlier drives have a “flap” which has to be lifted up to insert a tape making it a two hand job.Operational noises a little more irritating than the IBM drive.LTFS Implementation for Windows less featured than IBMs (LTO-6 and earlier). Depending on your use case you may also want to supplement it with this.Full AC power switch on front (I think).Fan is only on when tape is inserted, goes unto standby mode when empty (thanks to a fan output connector on the drive its self) – likely applies to LTO-6 drives and earlier only.“Fat” design thermally superior to IBM’s.An extra $1000 for an IBM branded one (grumble).Power supply is still on even when drive is off Drive is very long (340mm), may not fit on some shelves.Mine seems to jam during loading about 1 in 20 times – requiring a second attempt (which it does by its self automatically).Annoying high pitched sound when loading tape.Extremely noisy high-RPM 40mm fan on rear, always runs and restricts the drive to server room use only.Easy to dismantle (four screws on the underside, cover slides off).Slightly more pleasing operational noises.Easy single handed tape insertion – like a VCR.Good full featured LTFS implementation for Windows. ![]() Slimmer more aesthetically pleasing design.There are some things to consider (in the context of tabletop drives) when choosing one over the other: IBM Tabletop Drive We can see this in the picture with our top drive having an IBM style blue button like what is found on their servers and desktop PCs, and the bottom drive featuring HP’s corporate font under the LEDs.ĭell models feature a slightly different chassis however they are still IBM drives.īoth are very well engineered as you can imagine for the large price paid for these units purchased new. ![]() ![]() Both branded Quantumĭespite a range of different brands, there are two manufacturers of LTO tape drives: HP & IBM. Tape, today, remains the undisputed the king of air gaps. When talking about backup, IT administrators often use the term “air gap” meaning that data cannot be wiped out by a virus or other accidental software or power incidents. Tapes have no electrical connection to the drive whatsoever, even during operation. Happened to be subject to a massive electrical surge or lightning strike while your one and only copy of data on a tape was in the drive? Once again, no problem. Good luck doing anything like that on a hard disk! Just buy another tape, undo the four Phillips screws on the bottom and transfer the tape spool to another shell, and you’re back in business. The physical spool of tape is also very robust, unlike the glass platters of a hard disk.ĭropped your tape and smashed it? Somehow managed to kill that RFID chip? No problem. Tape media is purely mechanical (aside from the RFID chip on the side) meaning that there’s no electronics which can be damaged. There are other significant benefits of tape – particularly in the robustness and simplicity of the media. The low cost of the media also allows me to have a history of my data (say, a copy from each year), because sometimes, things get lost or corrupted, I don’t realise it, then end up overwriting a good (backup) copy of data with bad (or no) data. If like me you buy older generation drives second hand for personal backup, I find it actually works out cheaper than having say, two or three (or more) USB hard disks. ![]() For quite some time now I’ve been doing my backups (including all of the content on this website) by Tape.
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