Exabyte Corporation recently announced the availability of its 430M tape library with a native Fibre Channel interface.
Exabyte said the 430M-FC tape library is designed to provide IT professionals with an affordable, high-performance data storage solution for SAN applications, allowing users to eliminate backup windows, save money and reliably back up and restore their data.
According to the company, with a native Fibre Channel interface to both the robotics and the tape drives within the library, the 430M-FC eliminates the need for an internal bridge or router, bypassing a costly single point of failure in network backups. In addition, each drive attaches directly to the RAID devices in the SAN.
The 430M-FC can hold 30 cartridges and four M2 tape drives for capacities up to 4.5TB and data transfer rates of up to 432GB/hour in traditional SCSI implementations.
The 430M library is available in both SCSI and FC interfaces. MSRP for the Fibre Channel interface starts at $26,000 and includes the tape library, 2 M2(TM) tape drives, 30 data cartridges, fibre optic cabling, library monitoring software and barcode scanner.