Comparison of Native Fibre Channel Tape and SAS Tape Connected to a Fibre Channel to SAS Bridge

IT Managers may approach backing up Storage Area Networks (SANs) with the idea of purchasing native Fibre Channel tape drives or libraries. This paper examines the technical and economic considerations of implementing an alternative solution for SAN backup and archive; a Fibre Channel-to-SAS Bridge powering SAS Tape drives or libraries. Considerations of which solution to implement will be identified and the benefits of each will be compared on the basis of performance, availability, connectivity, manageability, intelligence and cost.

Although the native Fibre Channel tape options may appear to be less complicated, bridging devices utilizing SAS tape drives, such as an ATTO XstreamCORE FC 7600, provides significant advantages.

Files