VXA VS AIT

[Jeet]

We are in the process of buying tape drive. Anyone can suggest which
is better between the two ait or vxa. we are currently using dds-4
which is slow and too small based on our present needs.
Thanks for you help in advance.

[Lynn McGuire]

I have a VXA-2 tape drive that I paid $915 for at www.pcconnection.com
( http://www.pcconnection.com/scripts/productdetail.asp?product_id=300093 )
plus shipping. I also bought 10 tapes at $87 each (I see that they are $110
each now). It also requires a SCSI LVD board - I use a Adaptec 19160.

I am backing up about 1,300,000 files for a total of 78 GB. I get about
6 GB/hr of backup to it from my pc's hard drive. The other network hard
drives that I backup also are slower due to the network (or slow pc).

I am using Stomp's Backup My PC software that I am not totally happy
with. It is a renewal of the Veritas / Seagate Backup Exec for Workstations.
I just installed a new device driver for the VXA-2 per Stomp's request.
and I will find out more this weekend if it does OK.

Thanks,
Lynn McGuire

[Jason Fortezzo]

I was faced with a similar decision a few months ago. I chose AIT-2. 50GB
(native) tapes can be bought for $65 ($50 on ebay). AIT seemed to be more
"enterprise class", autoloaders and libraries were widespread. VXA seemed to be
a more niche product and now that Exabyte owns VXA you have to wonder how much
longer it will be around (Exabyte's stock price has been under 50 cents for the
past 3 months).

I've been using my AIT-2 drive on FreeBSD for quite some time, it works great.

YMMV.

Jason Fortezzo
usenet at mechanicalism dot net

[Andy]

In article <mpoqbvs5r4ki3a5bj...@4ax.com>, re...@my.sig says...

this post, coupled with the fact that Sony will still be in business in
3 years & the publications say that Exabyte may not be, probably make AIT
a better choice

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[Paul Rubin]

asel...@evenenterprises.com (Andy) writes:
> >I've been using my AIT-2 drive on FreeBSD for quite some time, it works
> great.
> >
> this post, coupled with the fact that Sony will still be in business in
> 3 years & the publications say that Exabyte may not be, probably make AIT
> a better choice

It looks like AIT stuff has gotten cheaper lately. AIT-3 looks more
attractive than AIT-2. The tapes are going for around $40 on ebay for
100 GB native capacity. That's the lowest $/GB I've ever seen for
tape media. The drives themselves are pretty expensive compared to
Exabyte drives though.

[Rob Turk]

"Andy" <asel...@evenenterprises.com> wrote in message
news:9cuva.28388$eJ2.14411@fed1read07...

> In article <mpoqbvs5r4ki3a5bj...@4ax.com>, re...@my.sig
says...
>

> this post, coupled with the fact that Sony will still be in business in
> 3 years & the publications say that Exabyte may not be, probably make AIT
> a better choice
>

IBM seems to disagree. They have selected VXA as DDS replacement for their
pSeries a couple months ago, and they have started shipping VXA for their
Intel servers last week. IBM isn't the kind of company that gambles on
unreliable partnerships.

Rob

[Paul Rubin]

"Rob Turk" <r.t...@chello.nl> writes:
> > this post, coupled with the fact that Sony will still be in business in
> > 3 years & the publications say that Exabyte may not be, probably make AIT
> > a better choice
> >
> IBM seems to disagree. They have selected VXA as DDS replacement for their
> pSeries a couple months ago, and they have started shipping VXA for their
> Intel servers last week. IBM isn't the kind of company that gambles on
> unreliable partnerships.

Why should IBM worry over whether VXA stuff is available 3 years from
now? As long as IBM has enough VXA spares in its own inventory to
cover its warranty obligations for its customers' installed servers,
then Exabyte could go belly-up tomorrow and IBM can just switch to
something else.

[Rob Turk]

"Paul Rubin" <http://phr...@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote in message
news:7xu1c1j...@ruckus.brouhaha.com...

> "Rob Turk" <r.t...@chello.nl> writes:
> > IBM seems to disagree. They have selected VXA as DDS replacement for
their
> > pSeries a couple months ago, and they have started shipping VXA for
their
> > Intel servers last week. IBM isn't the kind of company that gambles on
> > unreliable partnerships.
>
> Why should IBM worry over whether VXA stuff is available 3 years from
> now? As long as IBM has enough VXA spares in its own inventory to
> cover its warranty obligations for its customers' installed servers,
> then Exabyte could go belly-up tomorrow and IBM can just switch to
> something else.

Anyone who has worked on the supplier side of IBM will tell you that IBM
does not work like that. They are very picky on all sorts of things. They
make demands on form, fit, function and processes and usually get their way.
One thing they never do is build a large stock 'just in case' as it's a lot
cheaper to have the supplier pay for keping stock. They operate lean as any
other large company.

Rob

[Jeet]

jeetsa...@yahoo.com (Jeet) wrote in message news:<3dd572d4.03050...@posting.google.com>...

Thank You everyone for sharing your experiences. The information is
helpful and will help me making the decission right. Once again i
appreciate your help.

Thanks Jeet

[Andy]

In article <3ebf329c$0$127$e4fe...@dreader5.news.xs4all.nl>, r.turk@chello.
nl says...

sort of true
it's not the VXA product line that has brought Exabyte to
the verge of bankrutcy (per the publications)

it's the miserable mammoth-2 & their supposed lack of funding