Originally posted by: TonyPearson

Well, it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means? IBM Announcements!

Last week, IBM announced a variety of tape system enhancements.

IBM TS7760 Virtual Tape System

The IBM TS7760 combines the benefits of the previous TS7720 and TS7740 offerings. Those with IBM z System mainframes will recognize both. The TS7740 has a small amount of disk that pretend to be a tape library, with enough capacity to hold a few hours to a few days worth of data. After that, the data is moved to physical tape. The TS7720 is an all-disk solution, holding up to 1 PB of disk to hold weeks or months worth of data, but did not have tape attachment. Previously, IBM announced the TS7720T, a high-capacity offering with tape attachment. The new TS7760 is now the replacement for all three of these, powered by the latest POWER8 processor.

In addition to all the features available in the former models, the new TS7760 uses 4TB drives instead of 3TB drives, resulting in a maximum capacity of 1.3PB of disk capacity before compression. The disks are encrypted and protected by distributed RAID-6 referred to as "Dynamic Disk Pooling". While tape attachment is still optional, it supports both IBM TS3500 and TS4500 tape libraries.

To learn more, see the [TS7700 R4.0 delivers faster performance and larger maximum capacity with the new TS7760 offering] press release.

new Rack-mount Kit for TS1140 and TS1150 tape drives

Previously, the IBM tape drives had a rack-mount kit that took up 10U, and only worked with racks that were 28 inches deep, so two drives took up nearly one-fourth of a full rack. These new rack-mount kits take up only 3U for one or two drives, so they are more space-efficient, and can work with any racks that is 28 to 44.5 inches deep. To learn more, see the [IBM TS1140 and TS1150 Tape Drive rack mount kit features support RoHS compliance in a 3U form factor] press release.

IBM TS3500 Tape Library

The IBM TS3500 has been enhanced to support the new 16Gb FC attachments for the TS7700 virtual tape systems, including the new TS7760 I mentioned above. To learn more, see the [IBM TS3500 Tape Library supports new switch options]

IBM TS4500 Tape Library

The IBM TS4500 now can attach to IBM TS7720, TS7720T, TS7740 and TS7760 Virtual Tape Systems for z Systems mainframe attachment, with some amazing enhnancements over its TS3500 predecessor:

• Up to 60 percent reduction in floor space costs
• Up to two times faster access to data
• Up to 25 percent higher bandwidth per frame over TS3500
• z Systems synergy with support for 16 Gb Fibre Channel switch for up to 100 PB of z System Data storage

To learn more, see the [IBM TS4500 Tape Library supports TS7700 attachment] press release.

I am at the airport headed to Chicago for the IBM Technical University. If you are in the Chicago area, consider attending!

technorati tags: IBM, TS7700, TS7720, TS7720T, TS7740, TS7760, TS1140, TS1150, TS3500, TS4500