HP extends SureStore tape backup product range

Hewlett-Packard Company has announced HP SureStore TapeRack for 19-inch Compaq, IBM and Dell racks, offering unrivalled levels of availability and scalability, and ideally suited to meet the changing needs of large enterprises operating in mission-critical environments.

The new tape backup system offers unparalleled availability to ensure that a company`s valuable data is protected 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To achieve this, TapeRack features a combination of four hot-swap removable drives, DDS and DLT, allowing any of the drives to be interchanged without having to shut down or restart the server. The other significant means of maintaining continuous, uninterrupted service is the use of dual, redundant load-sharing power supplies, ensuring that if one power supply fails, all four drives can still continue as normal on the remaining power supply.

Scalability is another significant factor for enterprises that need to ensure their backup solution can be scaled up to meet the ever-increasing demands of the business. TapeRack has been designed specifically to offer capacity from 24GB (using a single HP SureStore Tape DAT24r drive) to 280GB (using four HP SureStore DLT 70r drives).

"Our aim is to offer best-of-breed, highly scalable and highly available data-protection solutions for mission-critical applications," said Ivan Kraemer, HP business development manager Middle East & Africa, back up and storage. "HP SureStore TapeRack for 19-inch Compaq, IBM and Dell racks extends the HP SureStore product range, enabling enterprises, irrespective of their current hardware, to reap the benefits of the tried and tested SureStore backup solutions. HP is committed to providing the most reliable and secure data-protection solutions to meet the ever changing needs of industry."

Other features of the product that differentiate it from its competitors are its superior transfer rates and three-year on-site warranty. Drive-data transfer rates of 7.2GB to 36GB per hour and parallel streaming of up to four drives on two SCSI channels supports backup of up to 144GB per hour for four DLT 70r drives.

"I fully intend to recommend TapeRack to my customers at Glaxo Wellcome as it supports our business, significantly increasing availability and reducing loss of service," said Nic Jones, technical support manager at Glaxo Wellcome`s IT division. "Our customers cannot afford any unscheduled downtime, as it significantly impacts business in terms of loss of productivity and costs. A product that is compatible with all the major brands of servers will certainly be a great benefit to us."

HP`s Information Storage Group, which focuses on the rapidly growing extended-storage market, manufactures and sells information-storage products based on tape, magneto-optical and CD-RW technologies. HP storage solutions include digital-audio-tape (DAT) drives and digital-linear-tape (DLT) libraries, minicartridge (QIC) tape drives and software, CD-ReWritable drives, and magneto-optical drives and jukeboxes. These products are sold through a variety of distribution channels under the HP SureStore and HP Colorado brand names, as well as to OEM customers.