LTO Brands to Buy (and avoid?)

[Tim Jones]

All of the manufacturers are at the same level of reliability from a hardware standpoint, but the vendors have varying levels of support depending on your platform.

If you’re Windows, you’ll be okay with all of the majors – HP, IBM, Tandberg Data, Quantum (TOLIS Group after NAB)
If you’re Mac, we recommend HP or our (TOLIS Group) versions of the HP solutions simply because we know how to support you on the Mac platform while IBM, Quantum and Tandberg are known to point fingers because they don’t know how to support the Mac platforms.

The only aside I’ll make is to use only HP or Fujifilm branded tapes regardless of the actual tape drive you end up purchasing.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Kevin Patrick]

I just realized I did a poor job of posting my question.

Which brands of LTO media? Not drives, or SW.

I’m looking for recommendations for the LTO media.

(sorry)

[Tim Jones]

In that case, my aside answered your query – HP and Fujifilm have proven to be the most reliable and least abrasive of the brands and are all that we recommend to our customers.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Jorge Bernal]

If I have a Quantum LTO drive, HP tapes would be better for it than Quantum branded tapes?

Jorge Bernal
Editor
http://www.bernal.tv

[Tim Jones]

We recommend HP and Fujifilm explicitly regardless of the drive vendor. It’s simply that the “smoothness” of new tapes is so important in the world we live in where a tape is usually used once and then stored – unlike a business backup situation where tapes may be rewritten 100’s of times.

While the issue may have been reduced with the other vendors’ formulations since the original issues were uncovered, we prefer to stick with the “knowns” rather than the “maybes” :).

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!