Ideal tape drive / loader

[egroeg]

Hi all.

I have a new deployment that I would ideally like to use veeam.

The customer already loves the ability to take tapes off-site and they're currently running an LTO-3 and using symantec backup exec for physical windows servers.

When I get vmware in there, we're likely going to run 5 VMs and I wish to bin backup exec for the main backup and use only veeam, then use backup exec to simply write to tape.

Once this is done, the customers data footprint is likely to get much larger as they need to introduce a new file logging system and we could be reaching 2-3 TB of daily full backups.

My question is,

What experience does the veeam forum have and what would you recommend as an appropriate tape loader. We've been looking at the Dell PowerVault 124T as it will sustain tapes and allow for us to take a tape/tapes offsite.

Any recommendation for use in conjunction with vmware/veeam infrastructure?

[TrevorBell]

Hi,

i had a 124T but is very cheap quality build and i scrapped it only after a few months! went for a Dual LTO-5 TL2000 yes a bit more expensive but a quality machine, you dont even need dual tape but this is afar superior machine to the 124T

hope that helps

any other question drop me a note,

Trev

[tsightler]

I would have to agree that the 124T is a very "cheap" feeling unit and I'd suggest the TL2000 as well. I will say though, we've had a 124T in service at one of our remote locations since around 2007 and it's really been no trouble. Well, it did lose a power supply which shorted so bad it tripped a circuit breaker in the rack power strip. But operationally it's actually been fine. Still, it's build quality and design is obviously far poorer than any library we have ever owned.

We've actually had great success with the Overland Storage NEO libraries. Their web interface leaves a little to be desired, but it's functional enough and they have been rock solid for us.

[egroeg]

We've actually had great success with the Overland Storage NEO libraries.

Cheers guys - looking into the Dell TL2000 and the Overland.

Quick question tslightler - is the Neo 200s comparable to the Dell TL2000 would you say? Looks like the models about the 200s are superior products (waiting on pricing to come back now).

[tsightler]

I really don't know anything about the 200s, we have a NEO2000 and it's easily been the most rock solid, reliable tape library we have ever owned, and we've owned a good many. But, the 200s is an entirely different design, so who knows.

I believe that the Dell TL2000 is actually a rebranded version of the BDT Flexstor II 2U library and is also sold by IBM as the TS3100. Nothing wrong with that, just pointing out that you have other pricing options if you want to get into a competitive situation for the same basic library. http://www.bdtp.com/cms/front_content.php?idart=68