Powervault TL2000 - will a Quantum FH tape drive work with it?

Another question - I know the Dell Powervault TL2000/4000 and HP MSL2024/4048 tape libraries are made by IBM (OEM - basically an IBM System Storage model TS3100/3200) and the HP model can use HP tape drives. I found an HP tape drive and sled/carrier (identical to the Dell sled) that was made for the MSL2024 - my next question is: can HP tape drives made for the MSL2024 be used in the TL2000? Basically, does it matter what brand tape drive (Quantum/Tandberg/IBM/HP) you use with the TL2000/4000 series tape libraries - as long as it's installed in the sled and connected with the control cable?

Hi

a company called BDT make the library and sell on to ibm and hp. i believe Dell buy from IBM which is why its virtually identical therefore only takes ibm drives. fujitsu and sun also used this library but i believe only use hp drive re-branded  and overland mixed but had differant firmware for each. hp unit only take hp drives, any quantum drive from the lto5 onward is a hp drive re-branded.

there's now only one LTO supplier and thats IBM so everything will be re-branded from LTO7 onward

there is no way a dell library will take a Quantum LTO5 as there physically  HP drives with quantum firmware. you can put an ibm drive from a ts3100/3200 into a tl2000/4000 but only because they use the same vpd settings.

the 124t library is completely different, quantum make this library so there firmware is different, plus the 124t along with the superloader3 came with ibm, quantum and hp drives depending on the age of it.

Do you think the TL2000 would have an issue using a Quantum LTO5 drive in it?

Has anyone ever tried using a non-Dell branded tape drive with it? I've seen some Powervault 124 tape libraries using Quantum tape drives - I'm just wondering if the firmware of the TL2000 would complain or have an issue if it sees a tape drive connected that's not an IBM/Dell. On a practical level, I would think it wouldn't matter since Dell couldn't predict the future with tape drive upgrades, so I would think they wouldn't lock the firmware to specific tape models. The only real communication between the tape drive and tape library is for passing status information and simple universal commands like telling the drive to unload a tape which is something all tape drives support.

I don't want to be the guinea pig and try it myself, I'd rather hear from a Dell engineer or from someone who's already tried it. I can't be the first one to ask about it and I'm sure someone knows the answer. :emotion-1:

That's a HP drive

What about this drive?

www.ebay.com/.../121995955605

Hello BSD2000,

As Tapelibraryfixer stated with a TL2000 or TL4000 it only uses IBM drives. If you try to insert an HP drive into your TL2000, and it is not running IBM firmware on the drive it will not be seen. You can try to flash the HP drive with IBM firmware, in most cases customers have not been able to get that to complete successfully.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

I found a decent price on brand new OEM Quantum LTO 5 drive that was manufactured by IBM (shows up as a 3580 Ultrium-HH5 in the device manager) and I was assured by the seller that it will work with the TL2000 tape library, so I have that coming next week.

One more question - will an IBM LTO5 SAS 6Gb tape drive work in a LTO3/4 SAS 3Gb sled? What is the purpose of having two SAS ports on the back of a LTO5 tape drive - is it just for daisy chaining a second device to channel B?

Hello BSD2000,

That drive 3580 should be seen correctly by your TL2000. Yes the drive will work on the drive sled for your TL2000. What you will want to do is to flash the drive firmware first, then flash the Library firmware to ensure that the drive is seen correctly.

The second port on the back of the drives is a failover port. You can only use one port on the drive at a time as the failover port option has been disabled on a TL2000. If you have purchased the failover option then you can enable it.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Can you provide the model number of the LTO-5 Quantum unit you purchased that has the IBM tape drive in it. As stated earlier most of the Quantum units has HP branded tape drives in them.