Dell PowerVault 132T LTO/SDLT (Tape Library) User Manual

Page 16

Performance Considerations for Tape Drives and Libraries

www

.dell.com | support.dell.com

Recommended Cabling Configurations

SCSI Cabling to the Host

Tape Library With up to Six Tape Drives

When the tape library is SCSI-attached to a host, ensure that no more than two drives are on a
single bus. Additional SCSI controllers are required for libraries with five or six tape drives to
ensure that no SCSI bus becomes a barrier to maximizing throughput.

Figure 1-8.

SCSI Cabling for Library With up to Six Tape Drives

Tape Library With up to Two Tape Drives

The drives in a fully configured two-drive tape library can be cabled to a host on the same SCSI bus
without encountering significant limitations to backup performance. The backup rates for two
drives on a single SCSI bus will match the backup rates for two drives on separate buses. However,
customers who enable the verify feature in backup applications may wish to improve the verify
performance by splitting two drives onto two SCSI buses. By doing so, verify performance may
improve by up to 25 percent.

library-to-host
SCSI cable

drive-to-library
controller SCSI
cable

terminator