IBM TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries for Lenovo

IBM TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries for Lenovo (Machine Type 6173) combine IBM tape and automation reliability at a cost effective price. Both libraries support entry-level, unattended backup, open system attachment flexibility, and enhanced capacity and performance.

The TS3100 is a 2U rack mount library that can accommodate up to two Ultrium half-high tape drives or one Ultrium full-high tape drive with 24 cartridge slots in two removable magazines, including a standard one-cartridge I/O station, a remote management unit, and a barcode reader.

The TS3200 is a 4U rack mount library that can accommodate up to four Ultrium half-high tape drives or two Ultrium full-high tape drives with 48 data cartridge slots in four removable magazines, including a standard three-cartridge I/O station, a remote management unit, and a barcode reader.

The choice of the tape drives for the TS3100 and TS3200 tape libraries includes IBM LTO Ultrium 7, Ultrium 6, and Ultrium 5 Half High (HH) and Full High (FH) tape drives with SAS or Fibre Channel host connectivity interfaces.

The TS3100 and TS3200 are ideal solutions if you need an entry-level larger capacity or higher performance tape backup with or without random access. These libraries are excellent choices for tape automation for Lenovo servers.

The TS3100 Tape Library is shown in the following figure.

Figure 1. IBM TS3100 Tape Library for Lenovo

Featuring the latest LTO Ultrium 7 technology, the TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries provide up to 360 TB and 720 TB of 2.5:1 compressed backup storage, respectively.

With IBM LTO Tape offerings that are available from Lenovo, Lenovo can be your trusted partner that offers "one stop shop" and single point of contact for delivery of leading edge technologies and innovations from Lenovo and other leading IT vendors to satisfy the wide range of your end-to-end IT infrastructure needs, including handheld devices, notebooks, personal computers, servers, storage, networking, services, management software, and financing.

The TS3100 and TS3200 deliver the following features:

• Entry-level tape libraries that are designed for high capacity, high performance, and high reliability.
• Adherence to LTO specifications.
• Support for half-high or full-high LTO Ultrium 7, Ultrium 6, or Ultrium 5 tape drives with SAS or Fibre Channel interfaces.
• Support for one full-high or up to two half-high tape drives in the TS3100; support for up to two full-high, or up to four half-high, or a combination of one full-high and up to two half-high tape drives in the TS3200.
• Native data transfer rate of up to 300 MB/s (Ultrium 7), up to 160 MB/s (Ultrium 6), or up to 140 MB/s (Ultrium 5).
• Native cartridge capacity of up to 6 TB (Ultrium 7), up to 2.5 TB (Ultrium 6), or up to 1.5 TB (Ultrium 5).
• Two (TS3100) or four (TS3200) removable magazine that can house up to 12 data cartridges to enable quick population of the tape library and ease the storage needs for media.
• A 1-slot I/O station (TS3100) or a 3-slot I/O station (TS3200) to help support continuous library operations, while importing and exporting media with little or no disruption to library operation.
• A standard bar code reader with which you can operate the TS3100 or TS3200 in sequential or random access mode.
• Mixed media support, including IBM LTO Ultrium 7, 6, and 5 WORM (Write Once Read Many) media.
• Remote management capabilities to allow for remote administration of the TS3100 and TS3200 through a web interface.
• Multi-path feature to allow sharing of the library robotics across heterogeneous applications independently of each other. The library can be partitioned into up to four logical libraries (each partition must have at least one drive). It also can provide each logical library its own separate and distinct drives, storage slots, and control paths.
• Optional System Managed and Library Managed Encryption on LTO Ultrium 7, Ultrium 6, and Ultrium 5 tape drives with a Transparent LTO Encryption feature.
• Optional Path Failover that enables the host device driver to transparently switch to an alternative path if there is a communication path failure to the application.
• An optional rack mount kit, an extra power supply for the TS3200 and more cartridge magazines.
• 3 Gb or 6 Gbps SAS, or 4 Gb or 8 Gb Fibre Channel attachments for connection to select Lenovo servers that run Microsoft Windows and Linux server operating systems.
• Support from an extensive ecosystem of backup software vendors.

Figure 2. IBM TS3200 Tape Library for Lenovo

The IBM LTO Ultrium Tape Drives includes the following other IBM LTO Ultrium features:

• Dual-stage head actuator

  The 16-channel actuator (LTO Ultrium 5 and 6) or 32-channel actuator (LTO Ultrium 7) provides precision head alignment to help support higher track density and improved data integrity.

• Independent tape loader and threader motors and positive pin retention

  These technologies helps improve the reliability of loading and unloading a cartridge, and to retain the pin even if tension is dropped. An independent loader motor, coupled with the positive pin retention, causes the tape to thread with a higher level of reliability.

• Graceful dynamic braking

  If there is a power failure, reel motors maintain tension and gradually decelerate instead of stopping abruptly, which helps reduce tape breakage, stretching, or loose tape wraps during a sudden power outage.

• Servo and track layout technology

  There are 3584 data tracks in Ultrium 7, 2176 data tracks in Ultrium 6, and 1280 data tracks in Ultrium 5. The high-bandwidth servo system features a low mass servo to help more effectively track servo bands and improve data throughput with damaged media in less-than-optimal shock and vibration environments.

• Surface Control Guiding Mechanism

  The IBM patented Surface Control Guiding Mechanism guides the tape along the tape path in the Ultrium 7, 6, and 5 Tape Drives. This method uses the surface of the tape (rather than the edges) to control tape motion. This configuration helps reduce tape damage (especially to the edges of the tape) and tape debris, which comes from the damaged edges and can accumulate in the head area.

• Giant Magneto Resistive (GMR) head design

  IBM LTO Ultrium Tape Drives use GMR head technology with beveled contouring for reducing striction and friction. This head design was demonstrated in enterprise tape products to help minimize contact, edge damage, debris accumulation, and wear on the tape as it moves over the read/write heads.

• Digital speed matching

  The LTO Ultrium Tape Drives perform dynamic speed matching to adjust the drive's native data rate as closely as possible to the net host data rate (after data compressibility is factored out). This matching helps reduce the number of backhitch repositions and improve throughput performance.

• Robust drive components optimized for automation environments

  To help enhance reliability and prolong the life of the drives, some of the most robust components available are used such as an all metal clutch, steel ball bearings in loader, robust leader block design, and a single circuit card.

• Power management

  The power management function of the Ultrium 7 and Ultrium 6 Tape Drives controls the drive electronics to be completely turned off or in a low-power mode when the circuit functions are not needed for drive operation.

• Adaptive read equalization

  This equalization automatically compensates for dynamic changes in readback signal response.

• Dynamic amplitude asymmetry compensation

  This compensation dynamically optimizes readback signals for linear readback response from MR read head transducers.

• Separate writing of multiple filemarks

  Separate writing of multiple filemarks evokes any write command of two or more filemarks to cause a separate data set to be written that contains all filemarks after the first. It helps improve performance if a subsequent append overwrites somewhere after the first filemark. This change helps prevent having to rewrite data sets that contain customer data and the first filemark, if such an append occurs.

• LTO Data Compression (LTO-DC)

  The Ultrium LTO uses LTO-DC, which is an implementation of a Lempel-Ziv class 1 (LZ-1) data compression algorithm. LTO-DC is an extension of Adaptive Lossless Data Compression (ALDC) and an improvement over previous IBM lossless compression algorithms. IBM patented "Scheme-Swapping" compression looks ahead at incoming data and determines the most efficient storage method (ALDC or pass-through mode) to help optimize data compression and increase data throughput.

• LTO Cartridge Memory (LTO-CM)

  Contained within the LTO Ultrium data cartridge is the LTO-CM, which is a passive, contactless silicon storage device that is physically a part of the cartridge. The LTO-CM holds information about that specific cartridge, the media in the cartridge, and the data on the media. The storage capacity of the Generation 7 and 6 LTO-CM is 16320 bytes, which is double the capacity of Generation 5 LTO-CM 8160 bytes. Communication between the drive and the LTO-CM is via a low-level RF field transmitted by the drive to the cartridge.

• Statistical Analysis and Reporting System (SARS)

  The Ultrium Tape Drive uses SARS to help isolate failures between media and hardware. SARS uses the cartridge performance history that is saved in the CM module and the drive performance history that is kept in the drive flash EEPROM to help determine the likely cause of failure. SARS causes the drive to request a cleaner tape, mark the media as degraded, and indicate that the hardware degraded.

• Highly integrated electronics that uses IBM engineered copper technology

  This technology reduces the total number of components in the drive, helps lower chip temperatures, and reduces power requirements to deliver a more reliable drive. The sixth-generation drive electronics provide error correction of soft errors in the memory arrays in data and control paths.

The following figure shows the front of the TS3100 Tape Library.

Figure 3. Front view of the TS3100 Tape Library

The following figure shows the front of the TS3200 Tape Library.

Figure 4. Front view of the TS3200 Tape Library

Figure 5. Rear view of the TS3100 Tape Library

The following figure shows the rear of the TS3200 Tape Library with the full high and half high Fibre Channel drive sleds, and the half high SAS drive sled.

Figure 6. Rear view of the TS3200 Tape Library

The following table lists the TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries system specifications.

The following table lists the ordering information for the TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Library models.

* Machine Type (first four digits); Model (last three digits and letters)

The part numbers for the TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Library models include the following items:

• One TS3100 or TS3200 Tape Library with one power supply and with the Bar Code Reader
• Two (TS3100) or four (TS3200) removable 12-cartridge magazines
• Warranty information
• Documentation CD that includes Setup, Operator, and Service Guide

The TS3200 unit supports redundant power with the optional second power supply that can be ordered with the unit. A power cable is not included with the optional power supply (for ordering information, see Table 8).

The following table lists the rack mount kit for the TS3100 and TS3200 units and the optional power supply for the TS3200 unit.

The TS3100 Tape Library can accommodate up to two LTO Ultrium half-high tape drives or one LTO Ultrium full-high tape drive. The TS3200 Tape Library can accommodate up to four LTO Ultrium half-high tape drives, up to two LTO Ultrium full-high tape drives, or a combination of up to two LTO Ultrium half-high tape drives and one LTO Ultrium full-high tape drive.

The following table lists ordering information for the tape drives for the TS3100 and TS3200.

A SAS cable or Fibre Channel cable is required to attach a tape drive in the TS3100 or TS3200 Tape Library to a host. One cable is required per one drive. The following table lists supported cable options.

** The interposer is used on the host side to connect up to four SAS tape drives to a single Mini-SAS x4 port on a SAS HBA with up to four 2 m Mini-SAS to Mini-SAS cables (part number 00NA009). 5.5 m Mini-SAS to Mini-SAS cables (part number 00NV418) are not supported with the interposer.
* The Y SAS HD cable is used to connect up to two SAS tape drives to a single Mini-SAS HD x4 port on a SAS HBA.

LTO Ultrium tape drives support the following backward compatibility for previous generations of tape media:

• LTO Ultrium 7 tape drives can read and write LTO Ultrium 7 and Ultrium 6 data cartridges, and can read Ultrium 5 data cartridges.
• LTO Ultrium 6 tape drives can read and write LTO Ultrium 6 and Ultrium 5 data cartridges, and can read Ultrium 4 data cartridges.
• LTO Ultrium 5 tape drives can read and write LTO Ultrium 5 and Ultrium 4 data cartridges, and can read Ultrium 3 data cartridges.

The TS3100 supports up to 24 data cartridges and comes standard with two removable tape magazine with 12 cartridge slots each. The TS3200 supports up to 48 data cartridges and comes standard with four removable tape magazines with 12 cartridge slots each. More removable tape magazines can be ordered with the TS3100 or TS3200, if needed.

The following table lists tape media options and extra magazines that can be ordered for the TS3100 and TS3200.

Note: A 5-Pack of the Ultrium 5, 6, or 7 Data Cartridges includes five unattached loose labels.

The functionality of the TS3100 and TS3200 can be expanded with the following optional software features:

• Path Failover
• Transparent LTO Encryption

The TS3100 and TS3200 offer an optional path failover feature that enables the host device driver to resend the command to an alternative control path for the same logical library to ensure smooth library operations if there is a communication error. With control path failover, the alternative control path can include another HBA, SAN, or library control path drive. The device driver starts error recovery and continues the operation on the alternative control path without interrupting the application.

IBM Ultrium 7, Ultrium 6, and Ultrium 5 tape drives are encryption-capable and they support the following modes of encryption management:

• System Managed: Available Linux and Windows; uses IBM device driver on a host system to setup encryption
• Library Managed: Available for Linux and Windows; requires an Extensible Key Management (EKM) server
• Application Managed: Available with third-party software such as IBM Spectrum Protect

System Managed and Library Managed Encryption requires an optional Transparent LTO Encryption license. Application Managed Encryption does not require a license.

The TS3100 and TS3200 ship standard without power cables. The part numbers and feature codes to order the power cables are listed in the following table.

* With two power supplies in the TS3200.

The TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries have the following dimensions and weight (approximate):

• Width: Rack mount 448 mm (17.6 in.), stand-alone 448 mm (17.6 in.)
• Depth: Rack mount 740 mm (29.1 in.), stand-alone 810 mm (31.9 in.)
• Height:
  • TS3100: Rack mount 87 mm (3.4 in.), stand-alone 98 mm (3.8 in.)
  • TS3200: Height: Rack mount 175 mm (6.9 in.), stand-alone 185 mm (7.3 in.)
• Weight:
  • TS3100: 15 kg (33 lb) without rack mount kit
  • TS3200: 21.3 kg (47 lb) without rack mount kit

The TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries are supported in the following environment:

• Air temperature:
  • Operating: 10 °C - 35 °C (50 °F - 95 °F)
  • Non-operating: -30 °C - 60 °C (-22 °F - 140 °F)
  • Maximum altitude: 2,500 m (8,200 ft)
• Humidity:
  • Operating: 15% - 80%
  • Non-operating: 10% - 90%
• Electrical power:
  • 100 V AC - 240 V AC (4.0 A to 2 A)
  • Frequency: 50 Hz - 60 Hz
  • Power consumption: 100 watts
• Acoustical noise emission:
  • 6.6 bels (idling)
  • 6.8 bels (operating)

The TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries have a three-year Customer Replaceable Unit (CRU) and onsite warranty with 9x5/next business day (NBD) terms. Lenovo offers the service upgrades through warranty maintenance upgrades and post-warranty maintenance agreements with a well-defined scope of services, including service hours, response time, term of service, and service agreement terms and conditions.

Lenovo warranty service upgrade offerings are region-specific. Not all warranty service upgrades are available in every region. For more information about Lenovo warranty service upgrade offerings that are available in your region, refer to the Lenovo Enterprise Solutions Configurator (LESC):
http://lesc.lenovo.com

The warranty service definitions for the TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries are listed in the following table.

In general, the following types of Lenovo warranty service upgrades for the TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries are available:

• Warranty and maintenance service upgrades:
  • Up to five years of 9x5 or 24x7 service coverage
  • Onsite response from next business day to 4 hours
  • Up to five years of warranty extension for all service levels in one year increments
• Remote Technical Support Services (RTS) for up to five years

  RTS provides comprehensive technical call center support. RTS can reduce problem resolution time, which decreases the cost to address technical problems and increasing uptime.

The TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries conform to the following regulations:

• FCC: Verified to comply with Part 15 of the FCC Rules, Class A
• Australia and New Zealand Class A statement
• Canada ICES-003, Class A
• European Union Council Directive 2004/108/EC
• EN 55022, Class A
• Japan VCCI Class A statement
• People's Republic of China Class A Electronic Emission statement
• Taiwan Class A compliance statement
• Korea KCC Class A statement
• Russia Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Class A Statement

Lenovo provides end-to-end storage compatibility testing to deliver interoperability throughout the network. The TS3100 and TS3200 support attachment to Lenovo servers by using SAS or Fibre Channel (FC) connectivity.

Note: Tables that are provided in this section are for ordering reference purposes only. End-to-end storage configuration support must be verified through the System Storage Interoperation Center (SSIC):
http://ibm.com/systems/support/storage/ssic

SAS connectivity

The following table lists currently available Lenovo SAS adapters that are compatible with the TS3100 and TS3200 SAS tape drives (direct attach). Other SAS HBAs also might be supported (for more information, see the System Storage Interoperation Center).

Fibre Channel connectivity

The TS3100 and TS3200 support FC switch-based attachments. Brocade and QLogic SAN switches can be used to provide FC connectivity with the TS3100 and TS3200.

The Lenovo FC adapters that are listed in the following table are compatible with the TS3100 and TS3200. Other HBAs also might be supported (for more information, see the System Storage Interoperation Center).

Networking switches

The following table lists currently available FC rack-mount switches that are offered by Lenovo that can be used in TS3100 and TS3200 solutions.

For more information, see the list of Product Guides in the following categories:

• Top-of-rack Switches: http://lenovopress.com/servers/options/switches?rt=product-guide
• Rack SAN Switches: http://lenovopress.com/storage/switches/rack?rt=product-guide

The following table lists currently available FC embedded switches and pass-thru modules for Flex System that can be used in TS3100 and TS3200 solutions.

For more information, see the list of Product Guides in the following categories:

• Blade Network Modules: http://lenovopress.com/servers/blades/networkmodule
• Blade Storage Modules: http://lenovopress.com/servers/blades/storagemodule

Operating systems

The TS3100 and TS3200 support host attachments to the Lenovo servers with the following operating systems:

• Microsoft:
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2016
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008
• Red Hat:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
• SUSE:
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10

Note: The LTO tape drives are supported when attached and run from the host operating system, however, in virtualization environments (for example, Hyper-V, KVM, Xen), the tape drives are not supported in the guest operating systems.

ISV backup software compatibility

The Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) indicate support for the TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries for the following ISV backup software:

• Arcserve Backup
• ASG Time Navigator
• Barracuda Yosemite Backup
• CommVault Simpana
• Dell NetVault Backup
• EMC NetWorker
• HP OpenView Storage Data Protector
• IBM Spectrum Protect
• Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager
• Symantec Backup Exec
• Symantec NetBackup

For more information, see the ISV matrix for IBM LTO that is available at this website:
http://www.ibm.com/systems/resources/lto_isv_matrix.pdf

The following table lists the rack cabinets that are offered by Lenovo that can be used in TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries solutions.

For more information, see the list of Product Guides in the Rack cabinets category:
http://lenovopress.com/servers/options/racks

The following table lists the power distribution units (PDUs) that are offered by Lenovo that can be used in TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries solutions.

For more information, see the list of Product Guides in the Power infrastructure category:
https://lenovopress.com/servers/options/pdu

The following table list the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units that are offered by Lenovo that can be used in TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries solutions.

For more information, see the list of Product Guides in the Uninterruptible Power Supply Units category:
http://lenovopress.com/servers/options/ups

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For your region specific offers please ask your Lenovo sales representative or your technology provider about the use of Lenovo Financial Services. For more information, see the following Lenovo website:
http://www.lenovofs.com

For more information, see the following resources:

• Lenovo Storage product page:
  http://www.lenovo.com/systems/storage
• US Announcement Letter - LTO Ultrium 7 Drives for IBM TS2900 Tape Autoloader for Lenovo:
  http://ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=dd&subtype=ca&&htmlfid=897/ENUS115-155
• US Announcement Letter - IBM TS3100 and TS3200 Tape Libraries for Lenovo:
  http://ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=dd&subtype=ca&&htmlfid=897/ENUS114-127
• Lenovo Enterprise Solutions Configurator:
  http://lesc.lenovo.com
• System Storage Interoperation Center (SSIC):
  http://ibm.com/systems/support/storage/ssic