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Hi All, Been a while since I posted here..... I have an HP SAS LTO 4 drive, that I've taken out of an autoloader (it is basically the same as a standalone drive but with no fascia on the front). It currently has firmware on it that basically makes it think it is in an autloader. I've downloaded the firmware for the standalone version becuase I'm convinced they are the same drive, just with different firmware on them, but the HP Tape Tools software isn't letting me flash with the standalone firmware. Anyone know of any ways around this, to make the drive / tape tools think it can accept the standalone firmware? Thanks very much

Hi all, If any of you out there are still using tape drives (we are, but in conjuction with online and NAS backup storage too) how often do you use a cleaning tape on them? Currently our LTO drive gets the cleaning tape every Monday morning and the drive does 5 backups a week plus a Saturday monthly. Do I need to be cleaning it every week? I only ask as I've got to order a new cleaning tape and I don't want to order / use more than I really have to.

Hi Everyone, How do you perform your offsite tape backup strategy in your office ? My Backup strategy is by put the tape daily overwrite with 3 weeks retention policy (the data that is written is always full to the tape). I'm using Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R2 with one LTO-4 tape drive. the tape involved is total 5 weekdays tape x 4 weeks. Backup Set week1 Monday1, Tuesday1, Wednesday1, Thursday1, Friday1 . . . Backup Set week4 Monday4, Tuesday4, Wednesday4, Thursday4, Friday4 As for the offsite I sent the tape backup set to the branch office in difference city using next business day courier every end of the week and then the branch office send me the oldest backup set to my HQ. Any kind of comments will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, AWT

I'm working on some data recovery as part of an investigation into the actions of a now liquidated company. The company in question kept major backups on Ultrium LTO2 tapes. I've managed to source the hardware necessary to use these tapes, but I do not know what software the company used. The directors are not forthcoming with this information as it is not in their best interests to help the investigation. How would I go about identifying the correct software they used? Or alternatively, is there some free software I can download that will analyse the tape's contents?

Hi, We're a school based in South Manchester with a five year old Dell PowerVault TL2000 tape backup drive that seems to be going a bit poorly - backups regularly failing to complete with "dirty tape" errors on brand new tapes even after repeated changes of cleaning tape. Was wondering if anyone can recommend a (reasonably) local firm who might be able to provide a service? Any suggestions greatly appreciated, Steve

My boss has always been bias when it comes to tape drive backup solutions. We cover many primary/first schools in our local LA and in every school that needs a new server, they end up buying a "built for purpose" Server with a LTO 4 Itanium Tape Drive. We buy our servers through Dell and those tape drives alone are £1300+ without the tapes. So if we quoted a server for £3500, i know that £1300 of that is for a tape drive which I need to rely on someone in the school to change over on a daily basis, as i'm only here once a week, (sometimes once every two weeks) depending on what the school have paid for. Thing is, teachers are difficult to teach and money is so tight these days, its probably best, imo, to get them to spend that £1300 on something else, maybe upgrade their 100Mbit switch to a Gig, or perhaps add more memory, a better processor etc. I'm trying to argue that tape drives in schools might not be the best solution and we should start thinking of alternatives, my favourite and the most popular being hard disk drives. My bosses main argument was that tape drives are many, so there are many backups so if one goes wrong then we have others to choose from, but with the cost of hard drives being so low these days (<£100 for a TB) if we got 5 HDD for £500 thats still a saving of £800. I'm trying to be diplomatic and need a convincing argument to put forward to try and convince my boss that this should be the way to go. Of course however, I am bias towards HDD backup solutions, so I might not be in the wrong, but after a lot of Googling, Its difficult to ignore that all "advantages" of tape drives are now being outnumbered by all the disadvantages and the fact that HDD are also stealing the show and are demonstrating better reliability over Tape drives. What are your opinions? Am I wrong or should HDD be the way forward?

Hi guys, Predeccesor was mis-sold this device. It is a 1u rackmount unit with a native 800Gb capacity or 1.6TB when compressed. There are two drawers that take 4 tapes each - total capacity 8 tapes (or 7 with one 'mailbox'). It comes with HPs own 'DataProtector' software although I use BackupExec 11d. The odometer only reads 370 jobs (most of them testing and or minor restores). I have had it in use for a couple of months but it is just the wrong device for the job. Here are the main details; HP StorageWorks 1/8 G2 Tape Autoloader (AH163A) specifications - HP Small & Medium Business products Technical specifications Box content (1) 6’ VHDCI to HDTS68 SCSI cable; (1) RJ-45 Ethernet cable; (1) HDTS68 SCSI terminator; Set of six rubber feet (for tabletop use); HP StorageWorks Data Protector Express CD (for use in downloading the Single Server Edition for Windows/Linux/NetWare); Documentation kit including User & Service Guide (CD) and Getting Started Poster Software included The 1/8 G2 Tape Autoloader includes HP StorageWorks Data Protector Express, Single Server Edition for Windows/Linux/NetWare. This application allows you to securely back up, and if necessary recover, a single Windows/Linux/NetWare machine to/from your HP StorageWorks tape drive or tape autoloader. Burst transfer rate performance 16 MB/s (native), 32 MB/s (compressed) Mean time between failures 100,000 hours (based on 1M MSBF) SCSI interface Ultra160 SCSI LVD/SE Chassis type 1U, rack or desktop Compressed capacity 1.6 TB Native capacity 800 GB Mount type Rack-mount, Tabletop Drive type Ultrium 232 Operating temperature range 10 to 35° C Operating humidity range 20 to 80% RH Non-operating humidity 20 to 90% RH Weight 11.5 kg Dimensions (W x D x H) 48.2 x 80.9 x 4.4 cm Package weight 15.3 kg Package dimensions (W x D x H) 58 x 99 x 25 cm ******************************************** I am looking for a a single drive higher capacity (so willing to swap if device is right). The sale/swap will include some brand new tapes and bar codes. Going on here for a week before going on ebay. Thanks for looking!

At Net-Ctrl we’re very selective with whom we partner. We provide solutions that we know deliver great performance at an affordable price. We don’t supply competing product, we will only partner with one manufacture in a particular area. We have built a long-term relationship with Overland Storage because they have excellent, market-leading solutions ideal for education, where budgets are tight and demands are high. If you’re looking at SAN/NAS/Tape we would really appreciate it if you let us know, so that we can speak to you about the Overland Storage solution. We will work to keep it all within your budget, and you may be surprised how far your budget will stretch! Within education we often come up against a lot of HP and DELL competition and the Overland offering at the end of the process has been given the go ahead on the majority of occasions. So if you are looking now or the near future at storage, please do let us know