NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/comp/sys/sun/admin/6157

Text File | 1992-09-07 | 1.8 KB | 42 lines

Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin
Path: sparky!uunet!sun-barr!ames!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!gatech!concert!samba!PHYSICS.UNC.EDU!kahn
From: [e-mail] (Dan Kahn)
Subject: Exabyte robots and stackers
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
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Nntp-Posting-Host: augustus.physics.unc.edu
Organization: Physics Dept. UNC-CH
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 18:27:10 GMT
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We've been looking at buying a tape robot to help with our backup
duties.  All of the dealers we've contacted seem to sell a "value added"
piece of equipment made by Exabyte.

There seem to be two types of equipment, a Tape Robot, and something
called a Stacker.  The tape robot allows random access to tapes while
the stacker must go through them sequentailly.

I'm interested in two things:  I'd like to know what the functional
differences between the two type of equipment are.  (My guess is that
with the stacker you issue commands like "advance 5 tapes", and the
computer program must keep track of which tape is in what position in
the stack, while in the real robot, one only needs to say "give me the
fifth tape", and the robot will retreive the same tape every time this
command is made.)

For this to work as a backup system, the Robot/Stacker must be able to
work with backup software.  The backup software I've looked at seems
to work on a kind of "operator paradigm" where it expects an operator to
be present to insert a particular tape.  While this could be made to
work with a tape robot with a little work, it might be very difficult to
get it to work with a stacker.  This is my main concern.

If people who are using one of these pieces of equipment with backup
software would send me a short description of their experiences I'll
post a summary to the net.

Thanks,
--dan