Imation morphs drives into tapes

Legend and technology blend together in the latest announcement from Imation. The moniker for the new product is Ulysses, a name that immediately evokes the idea of stealth, but this new spin on D2D (disk-to-disk) backup from Imation is no Trojan horse.

The idea behind Ulysses is to provide seamless replacement for tape media, using 2.5" SATA disk drives wrapped in modules that look exactly like LTO cartridges.

Wondering what will possibly read or write data to these disk drives in tape clothes? A Ulysses tape emulator, says Imation, in essence a box that has the same shape and the same behavior of a SCSI LTO tape drive, to the point that you can mount one into any compatible tape library.

Obviously if those tape emulators and disk cartridges will fool an unsuspecting library and its robotics, backup applications will be similarly deceived, which should make moving to D2D backups easy and painless.

What's the possible advantage of using Ulysses? Doing lighting fast restores should be a given, especially with repeated recovery of only a few files, but if your servers are slowpokes you could save some significant shoe-shine time also on backups.

These are benefits common to many VTLs or disk-based backup appliances but Ulysses adds a granular seamless deployment (the minimum increment is just one drive) that makes possible a streamlined, pay as you go approach.

Moreover, if you have a library with room for expansion, Ulysses can make the most of that investment. Obviously, if your library is already maxed up the solution from Imation is much less appealing.

Imation states that each Ulysses media should survive 3000 write passes, which sounds reassuring, but let me point out also a couple of concerns.

Even dressed as a tape, a disk drive remains vulnerable to improper handling and can be damaged if dropped. Another concern I had was the effect of the numerous jolts from library robotics.

A quick e-mail exchange with Imation brushed off those concerns:

"The mobile hard drives are specified for a non-operating shock rating of 900 Gs, this will be compatible with most library mechanisms. The HDD cartridge package has been drop tested from 30 inches onto industrial grade carpeting, which is the same as some tape products."
tells me Imation's Yung Yip.

Then Yip adds:
The tape drive emulators can emulate multiple tape drive formats. Since the physical fromat is LTO, we are emulating LTO-1 and LTO-2."

I learned from Yip that Imation implemented also emulators for legacy tape formats, which could be a lifesaver in some environments.

Imation will announce pricing later this year, so my only comment on money aspects is that to be successful Ulysses has to be competitive with other disk-based backup solutions.