Dell PowerVault 110T LTO3 - Manual (Page 14)

14
Performance Considerations for Tape Drives and Libraries
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Figure 1-6. Single vs. Split Data Flow to Tape Library
At the same time, if a bottleneck exists in the data being read from an external FC disk array, the
use of I/O management software such as EMC
®
PowerPath
®
with an additional fabric connection
will automatically load-balance the data across multiple paths and increase availability through
path failover. See Figure 1-7. The left side of the figure represents a SAN disk array in which all of
the data is forced through a single link, creating a bottleneck that slows data flow to the tape
hardware. The right side shows how load balancing doubles the I/O bandwidth coming out of the
array by allowing the data to transmit across two links.
HOST
Fibre Channel
Switch
Fibre Channel
Disk Array
Fibre Channel
Switch
Fibre Channel
Switch
HOST
Fibre Channel
Disk Array
Tape Library Tape Library