BM TS4300 Tape Library is the next-generation storage solution designed to help mid-size enterprises respond to future challenges, including increasing data volume and cost of data centre storage footprints, difficulty migrating data across vendor platforms, and increased complexity of IT training and management as staff resources shrink. The TS4300 Tape Library is an external 3U rack-mountable unit that incorporates Linear Tape-Open (LTO) IBM Ultrium 6, 7 , 8 and/or 9 Tape Drives.
Requirements for secure, long-term data retention, especially in the financial services, healthcare, and life sciences industries, are common and increasingly stringent, with data volumes growing massively as a result. Tape storage offers a less costly long-term storage option than disk drives or flash. Data stored on tape kept offline or on write-once media is nearly impossible to hack.
IBM TS4300 Tape Library helps support requirements for organizations that must provide secure, long-term storage for their data, enabling them to start with a 3U-high base library and scale to as many as seven modules, and to increase cartridge and drive capacity as needed, with a maximum capacity of 280 LTO Ultrium tape slots and 5.04 PB of native storage based on LTO 9.
LTO Ultrium 6 tape drives support the LTO Generation 6 media specification with the compressed capacity of up to 6.25 TB with 2.5:1 compression (up to 2.5 TB native capacity) per tape cartridge.
LTO Ultrium 7 tape drives support the LTO Generation 7 media specification of more than double the compressed capacity of up to 15 TB with 2.5 to 1 compression (up to 6 TB native capacity) when compared to LTO 6.
LTO Ultrium 8 tape drives support the LTO Ultrium 7 Type M media specification with compressed capacity of up to 22.5 TB with 2.5 to 1 compression (up to 9 TB native capacity)
LTO Ultrium 8 tape drives support the LTO Generation 8 media specification of more than double the compressed capacity of up to 30 TB with 2.5 to 1 compression (up to 12 TB native capacity) when compared to LTO 7.
LTO Ultrium 9 tape drives support the LTO Generation 9 media specification with compressed capacity of up to 45 TB with 2.5 to 1 compression (up to 18 TB native capacity).
The base module of the TS4300 tape library can accommodate either up to three Ultrium half-high tape drives with either SAS or Fibre type of attachment, one Ultrium full-high with Fibre type of attachment, or a combination of one Ultrium full-high plus one Ultrium half high tape drives. It can also hold up to 40 data cartridge slots in two removable magazines, including a standard five-cartridge I/O station. Other standard features include a 240 x 128 pixel monochrome graphic display with a front USB port, a 10/100/1000 Ethernet Port, and a high-speed barcode reader.
Note: Details about capacity are available at the TS4300 page in IBM Documentation.
On its maximum configuration of one base module and six expansions, the TS4300 tape library can accommodate up to twenty-one Ultrium half-high tape drives, seven Ultrium full-high tape drives, or any combination of both based on the drive form factor (space needed for one full-height drive equals two half-height drives), and data cartridge slots.
Simplify tape storage deployment and management
TS4300 is based on an advanced control system to help speed deployment and simplify management. Best-in-class error recovery and reporting, library health monitoring and alerting, and auto-recovery features help to speed diagnostics and resolution. An internal Ethernet automation drive interface significantly increases drive communication speed for faster code updates and log downloads.
IBM offers diverse management software solutions for TS4300 to enhance the use of multipath architecture, as well as the use of a single TS4300 library. The library software includes API hooks that enable easy integration of IBM software.
Management software options
IBM Spectrum Archive: TS4300 leverages IBM Spectrum Archive for direct, intuitive and graphical access to data stored in IBM tape drives and libraries by incorporating the IBM Linear Tape File System (LTFS) format standard. LTFS compatibility allows tape-stored data to be accessed as if it were on disk or flash storage.
IBM Spectrum Archive enables users of LTO Ultrium 9, 8, 7 and 6 tape library systems to inventory cartridges and read, write, and search data on any cartridge, enabling writing of metadata and tagging of individual files for easy and fast access to files stored on cartridges.
IBM Spectrum Protect: Spectrum Protect enables users to create, manage, and optimize archives, and provides management of concurrent copies of content, plus active, inactive, and off-site content.
Model abstract 3555-L3A
IBM TS4300 Tape Library machine type 3555 model L3A can be used as rack mountable unit, and can accommodate up to three Ultrium half-high tape drives with either SAS or Fibre type of attachment, one Ultrium full-high with Fibre type of attachment, or a combination of one Ultrium full-high plus one Ultrium half high tape drives. It can also hold up to 40 data cartridge slots in two removable magazines, including a standard five-cartridge I/O station. Other standard features include a 240 x 128 pixel monochrome graphic display with a front USB port, a 10/100/1000 Ethernet Port, and a high-speed barcode reader.
Note: Details about capacity are available at the TS4300 page in IBM Documentation.
Model abstract 3555-E3A
IBM TS4300 Tape Library machine type 3555 model E3A is an expansion module that can be stacked with the base model on any standard customer supplied rack and allows significant growth by allowing up to 6 expansion modules to be added to the base library. Each expansion will add 40 slots of LTO cartridge capacity and can include an additional three half-height LTO drives or an additional one full-height drive plus one half-height LTO drive.