Autoloader vs Tape Library
S.No. Feature
1 No. of drives
2 No. of slots
3 Scalability
4 Upgradability
5 Access to Slots
6 Automatic Identification of
cartridge
7 Reliability
8 Mixed Drive support
9 Automatic Calibration
10 Central Management
(Network port is required
for this)
11 Inventory Management (of
cartridges inside the
library)
12 Automatic Cataloguing of
cartridges inside library
Autoloader
1 drive only
Either 7, or 9 or 11 depending
upon the manufacturer. Seagate
Autoloader has 11 slots
No
No
Sequential starting from slot
no.1 going till the end
No. Autoloader doesn’t have
barcode scanner to identify
cartridge automatically (In an
automated environment,
cartridges are identified by
Bar-code labels which needs to
be correctly read)
Unreliable.
1) MSBF for robotics is
1.5 million . MTBF
figure is not published
but definitely expected
to be lower than library.
2) Has only 1 drive so
failure of 1 drive stalls
the operation
No
No
No
No
No
Tape Library
At least 1 and higher.
Maximum can be up to 960
drives in 1 library
At least 10. Maximum slots in
1 library can be 144000
Yes
Yes
Random. The robot can access
to any one of the slot
randomly
Yes. Barcode scanner or
Digital Camera (in
StorageTek) which identifies
the cartridges.
Reliable
1) STK libraries are most
reliable with MSBF of
2 million and MTBF
of 360,000hrs.
2) Can configure more
than 1 drive, so failure
of 1 drive doesn’t stall
the operation
Yes, in STK libraries. You can
have different technologies of
tape drives like LTO ,
DLT,SDLT,etc. in the same
library
Yes
Yes
Yes ( takes automatic
inventory of cartridges)
Yes