IBM System Storage TS3100 Tape Library Express Model

Highlights

• Designed to support one IBM LTO Ultrium Full Height Tape Drive or up to two IBM LTO Ultrium Half Height Tape Drives, to help increase capacity and performance
• Designed to support cost-effective backup, save and restore and archival storage in sequential or random access mode with a standard bar-code reader
• IBM Ultrium 4 technology is designed to support encryption of data with 3 Gigabits per second (Gbps) Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and continues to support write-once, read-many (WORM) operations
• Designed to offer outstanding capacity, performance and reliability for midrange and network tape-storage environments in a 2U form factor with 24 data cartridge slots and a mail slot
• Remote library management through a standard Web interface supports flexibility and greater administrative control of storage operations.

The IBM System Storage TS3100 Tape Library Express Model and its storage management applications are designed to address capacity, performance, data protection, reliability, availability, affordability and application requirements. It is designed as a functionally rich, entry tape-storage solution incorporating LTO Ultrium tape technology. The IBM TS3100 Express model is an excellent solution for large-capacity or high-performance tape backup with or without random access. The TS3100 is also an excellent choice for tape automation for IBM Power Systems, IBM System x and other open systems.

The IBM TS3100 Tape Library Express is well-suited for handling backup, save and restore and archival data-storage needs for small to medium-size environments. With the use of one LTO Full Height tape drive or up to two LTO Half-Height tape drives and 24 tape cartridge capacity, the IBM TS3100 is designed to take advantage of LTO technology to cost-effectively handle growing storage requirements. The TS3100 Tape Library is configured with two removable cartridge magazines, one on the left side (12 data cartridge slots) and one on the right (12 data cartridge slots). Additionally, the left magazine includes a single mail slot to help support continuous library operation while importing and exporting media. A bar-code reader is standard in the library, supporting the library’s operation in sequential or random access mode. The TS3100 also comes standard with remote management capabilities to allow for remote administration of the tape library through a Web interface. Path Failover, an optional feature, is designed to provide automatic control path failover to a preconfigured redundant control path in the event that a host adapter or control path drive is lost without aborting the current job in process.

The IBM Ultrium 4 technology is designed to support encryption of data. The hardware encryption and decryption core and control core reside in the IBM Ultrium 4 tape drive (available to the TS3100 with the 3 Gbps SAS interface). A larger internal data buffer helps improve data access rates and reduce cartridge fill and rewind times along with dynamic channel calibration designed to help increase data throughput. In addition to reading and writing to LTO Ultrium 4 tape cartridges, the LTO 4 tape drive can read and write to LTO Ultrium 3 cartridges and read LTO Ultrium 2 cartridges with improved data rates. The IBM Ultrium 4 tape drive is designed to support up to 120 MageBytes per second (MBps) native data-transfer rates and up to 800 GB native physical capacity when using the IBM System Storage Ultrium 800 GB Data Cartridge (1.6 TB with 2:1 compression). The TS3100 featuring Ultrium 4 tape drives has a capacity of up to 19.2 TB native (38.4 with 2:1 compression).

The IBM LTO Ultrium 3 Full Height tape drives are designed to support up to 80 MBps native data-transfer rates and Half-Height Tape Drives support up to 60-MBps native data-transfer rates.

In addition, the TS3100 featuring Ultrium 3 tape drives has a capacity of up to 9.6 TB (19.2 TB with a 2:1 compression).

The IBM TS3100 Tape Library Express featuring Full Height technology offers an low voltage directive (LVD) Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), 4 Gbps fibre-channel (FC) and 3 Gbps SAS interfaces for ultrium 4 drives (LVD SCSI and 4 Gbps FC for ultrium 3 drives). While Half-Height Ultrium technology offers an LVD SCSI or a 3 Gbps SAS interface for Half-Height LTO 3 drives and 3 Gbps SAS interface for Half-Height LTO 4 and can attach to a wide variety of open-system servers. The sequential or random access library comes in a stand-alone base configuration with the option of an industry-standard 19-inch rack-mount kit. The IBM TS3100 also has a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) display and indicators for power, drive and activity, error status and message information.