Sun is betting on a future in the tape cartridge format, as is clear from its introduction of the LTO 4 Fibre Channel drive across the complete suite of tape automation libraries. Drew Robb of enterpriseITplanet.com looked into and reports on the matter in his article Sun Touts Tape, LTO 4 as Vital Data Center Technology.

Robb found Alex North, Sun's group manager for tape, to be an enthusiast for tape in his remark that, "The LTO 4 FC Tape Drive delivers high capacity and increased performance for open systems environments. This improves storage density in new or existing libraries and allows for easy upgrades to newer technology in the same automation footprint. We are seeing solid traction in the market and have outpaced our expectations."

The article touches on the range of the Sun tape library portfolio, from the StorageTek SL8500 (starting price of $195,830) to the Sun StorageTek SL500 (starting at $16,400), with systems that range from 56 petabytes down to 460 terabytes.

"We are seeing a lot of consolidation in the tape marketplace, which continues to drive double-digit annual revenue growth in our enterprise library, the Sun StorageTek SL8500," North remarked. "Additionally, there continues to be growing demand for high availability, which is driven in part from the consolidation that results in higher utilization of tape drives and thus 24x7 operation. We are also seeing strong adoption of the scalable libraries in the distributed and small business space, as evidenced by continued growth of the SL500," he added.

Robb also considers Sun's tape drives, comparing performance advantages between the LTO 3 and LTO 4 in terms of first-file access time, rewind time, capacity and data transfer rates.

And if you're still not convinced as North and Robb are, don't overlook the encryption feature that is now available on the Sun StorageTek T10000, for example.

"The StorageTek T10000 was launched in April 2006 and we continue to show strong growth in open systems," says North. "We expect to accelerate that in 2008 with the next generation T10000."

Robb writes that Sun's T9840 mainframe drive allows customers to use the same media that was introduced in 1998 but at higher capacities as a clear instance of investment protection.

He gives the last word to North: "Most customers spend more on media than they do on the drives or library, so this investment protection that allows media re-use at the new higher capacities has huge customer value." [...read more...]

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