It also lets network administrators fulfill their dreams of truly automatic, unattended backups. These systems allow end users to request restores of their own files from the server, resulting in near-complete automation of a process that once consumed considerable administration time. The choice of which autoloader to purchase should be based on your capacity, bandwidth and duty cycle requirements.
Capacity is the primary consideration for an automated backup system.
Capacity is simply a function of the amount of data per tape multiplied by the number of tapes held in the library. Bandwidth dictates how much data can be backed up within a backup window. For instance, a number of backup software packages that support multiple tape drives will transfer data from only one drive at a ti me. If your software cannot simultaneously transfer data to and from more than one drive, then purchasing anything other than a single-drive autoloader is a waste of money. A discussion of tape autoloaders and libraries without mentioning tape drive technologies would be useless.