When tape cassettes ride the rollercoaster (PWJ218)

I got an Overland Neo series tape library for scrapping and I thought it is quite funny to see the mechanism doing it's job. It's all LTO3 based, that means quite old... (around 2005)

[@mikeselectricstuff]

I love that rotating track section - really neat way to get the movement needed

[@PlaywithJunk]

Did you notice the 3mm wire that goes over the gripper? This is only there to guide the cables properly. It's mounted with one screw and at first view, you think it's broken... 🙂

[@haralamc]

Totally need to convert this into a snack dispenser.

[@detscadosu2465]

the world has enough of those, I would keep it like it is right now

[@PlaywithJunk]

Put your snacks in empty tape cartridges.... but make sure you never put them into the drive. ;-)

[@ecaparts]

Good idea! That would go with the CD-Rom cup holders nicely!!

[@NickNorton]

If anyone needs to ask the price. You would not have been able to afford it. lol

[@oxivanisher]

A blast from the past! :) I still remember when I was disassembling Storagetek (then still Sun) PowderHorns for a big swiss telco. I saved one of the "enter/do not enter" lights from that and use that in my IOT setup. 🤪 This was a "tape library" where you could go inside, it was that big.

[@NiksSofa]

would have been nice to mention tape storage capacity. I feel sad to see this scrapped. This is the kind of hardware I would have dreamed of playing around with 20 years ago.

[@Gordon302]

That depends on whether or not the data is compressed or uncompressed. However, if you pause the video, it clearly says 800Gb's per tape. Also, these are LTO3 tapes.

[@christiankoller80]

Cool, that was my favourite library as a field engineer

[@dregenius]

What a humdinger of a contraption. 😍

[@Wtfinc]

I absolutely freaking LOVE tape drives and I’ve always wanted one. Even just a simple one for a desktop pc.

[@JW-uC]

I love how someone programmed it to "half push tape, do little wiggle, push rest of the way in". I'm gona guess that at some point it was found that some tapes didn't slot home on the first push (either tolerances; labels that were a bit sticky; or wear over time) , and the wiggle was the fix that got rolled out and then implemented as a standard from then on.

[@GothPanda]

Towards the end, it looks like you can actually see what it's doing there: it's pushing it in part way, pulling the hook out of the tape, pulling the hook back, then using the hook to push the tape in the rest of the way.

[@PlaywithJunk]

Oh yes, there was a lot of trial and error before the first unit was shipped. Well today, they first ship it and watch what customers say... 🙂

[@TheJonathanc82]

Never had an overland system, but i used full rack size IBM tape libraries back in the day. They were pretty awesome to see in action.

[@WyomingGuy876]

Did you use the IBM MSS (Mass Storage Subsystem)? with the little eggs?

[@TheJonathanc82]

I think the model was the system storage 3584-L53 robotic TS3500 LTO tape library.

[@leopiipponen7693]

Tape library are very handy for automation daily backup routine :)

[@PlaywithJunk]

That's exactly what it is made for.

[@malkeus6487]

Once again a robot has replaced a intern

[@rarbiart]

the rotating track section is amazing. i can just imagine how many iterations it took to get such a contraption reliable for MTBs >10.000 hours.

[@PlaywithJunk]

Im not sure but the library has something around 100'000 hours on the counter. And it doesn't look like it was repaired many times.

[@rarbiart]

@@PlaywithJunk that was my point: it certainly is/was reliable. But looking at the contraption, it looks like the average home 3d printer... and we know about their regular issues of wear on belts, pulleys etc.

[@user-iz4cf5xf6w]

wow, it looks better than MSL series especially the robotic hand

[@saschah.26]

I find it regrettable that tape drives have not become affordable for home users. Is there a 'cheap' alternative for storing 2 TB or more without magnetic hard drives?

[@PlaywithJunk]

There have been many formats some dacades ago. DAT Video8 QIC... all usable for private use but the all disappeared. I guess disk drives are getting too cheap.

[@gooseknack]

Sadly, tape drives are dead. Have been for a while in the computer world. You might find an old setup like in the video, likely the tapes will be showing wear and any "new/old" cassette stock you find, might be worse than what's in the machine. Why go magnetic tape that is much more fragile than HDD's? And now SSD storage thats becoming cheaper, is lighter and doesn't suffer from mechanical wear.

[@jdenm8]

@@gooseknack Nah, they still make new tapes, drives and autoloaders. Installed a new Dell 48-Tape LTO8 Library this week. It's definitely getting more and more niche, but still easier than HDDs if you're doing offsite swaps of dozens of TBs.

[@Darkk6969]

@@gooseknack Tapes are still being used in the Enterprise world. Think offline storage and protected from ransomware.

[@hakureicirno6059]

LTO5 should be cheap enough by looking at ones retired from servers. But most of the desktop PCs won’t have SAS interface so you also need an adapter card. DAT160/320 could be get for quite a bargain but they are mostly just for fun. They aren’t even matchable to BD-Rs considering the speed and maintenance.

[@jd3497]

Similar to, but no the same storage density of a tape silo. Very interesting.

[@PlaywithJunk]

And not the same price… 😃

[@RBLevin]

Take it to bits!

[@PlaywithJunk]

You would probably be disappointed. The most interesting parts can be seen without disassembly. If you dig deeper, you will find that everything is made quite cheap. But it works anyway... 🙂

[@gooseknack]

It's funny to see someone say that something from 2005 is "quite old".. 😂.. In terms of computer tech, it is quite old. It was likely considered "state of the art" at the time. It may be too modern for Curiousmarc at the museum!.. 🤔

[@BollingHolt]

How cool!

[@Narwaro]

I used to have (probably still do somewhere) this exact unit, but from HP not Overland. I dont know if HP or Overland is the originator but my unit is absolutely identical in design, its just branded HP. Didnt know that. Mine doesnt have the elevator but two full height drives. I still remember it being a little unamused with FC drives, it wanted LVDS SCSI with HD connectors.

[@PlaywithJunk]

Overland (later bought by Quantum) made these libraries for many others. HP is among them. IBM too.

[@callmefoxie2950]

This gets WAY more interesting once you get your hands onto a whole rack unit. Or actually several that are connected with each other by rails.. pretty sure it was you or jpkiwigeek or somebody who had a video on it :)

[@PlaywithJunk]

I made a video about an Adic library of that size

[@PlaywithJunk]

Sorry it was a Quantum Scalar

[@laptop006]

Or the full StorageTek silos, we used to buy them by the dozen

[@PlaywithJunk]

@@laptop006 I once saw a tape library that used a cute small industrial robot arm to move the cassettes. It looked like the robots that assemble cars but was only 1 meter tall and was riding on tracks.

[@GLITCH_-.-]

This drive has a nice visual representation while defragmenting. (if it is more intelligent than what we see in the video)

[@jimsvideos7201]

I don't even want to consider what that cost new. 😳

[@Slash27015]

I wonder what kinda storage a unit like this could pack

[@lanealucy]

I love tape library's, also have 3 myself, but only 1 of them works. The smaller non working needs a new tape drive and the very big non working I don't have the password and if I reset it, all the sun licenses are gone and I can't use all slot's. Also I can't set a new password after reset, because sun decided, that you need a one time password from them to set any new passwords and they don't provide these one time passwords anymore. Sadly.....

[@der.Schtefan]

"Sir, my cassette got improperly touched by your robot!" Cassey, can you show us where the robot touched you?

[@PlaywithJunk]

I'm sorry but I can't help you with that. Please call Overland customer support for assistance, thank you. ;-)

[@pizzablender]

And you payed through the nose for the backup software. Per client, per tb, per drive, and per tape slot in the library... The software makers were making the profits here, I suppose.

[@wisiferdaale3427]

i am not sure what the purpose is of the metal bar on top. it looks like a guiderail, but why make it offset on the unit? thenm i thought it was an angle-measure thing, but i dont see any sensor. stability on those tracks looks good enough. for the cable management maybe?

[@PlaywithJunk]

It is relatively loose and it's purpose it to prevent the cable chain to hang down or mesh. It's only mounted with one screw above the front panel.

[@nowheremanjk8624]

Are tape memories still used today, or only HDD or SSD?

[@PlaywithJunk]

They are still used today. The newest LTO9 has a capacity of 18TB native and 45TB compressed per cassette. Price is about $120. Best format for long term data storage.

[@bernhardschuepbach4533]

Ich als Freund von Mechanik und IT finde das Teil mega 🙂 Wieviel Speicherplatz ist auf einem dieser Tapes?

[@PlaywithJunk]

LTO3 = 300GB, LTO8 = 30TB (pro Kassette)

[@TimEckert]

@@PlaywithJunk Schon beeindruckend, wie schnell sich das alles weiterentwickelt hat. Ich habe vor ein paar Monaten das erste LTO-9 in der Firma in Betrieb genommen, 18TB pro Band (unkomprimiert).. bin schon sehr gespannt, wann LTO-10 marktreif ist. 36TB pro Medium wäre wieder so ein großer Sprung wie LTO-6 zu LTO-7.

[@colinstu]

These things seem way more complicated then they need to be. Were they trying to find reasons to make these expensive?

[@PlaywithJunk]

This one is in fact very simple and cheap compared with others. It just does what it needs to do.

[@explorer914]

Roughly how much data can a single cassette hold?

[@maxvt1]

The tapes say “Ultrium 3”, which is also known as the LTO-3 standard. These are 400GB, advertised as “800GB uncompressed data” and counting on a 2:1 or better compression ratios. You can look up other generations on, for example, Wikipedia. The standard is still alive and current generations are used for backing up large amounts of data in on premise datacenters.

[@f.k.b.16]

Don't you have another video like this on your channel? Actually I think that video is how I first found your channel if I'm thinking correctly 🤓

[@PlaywithJunk]

Yeah, some years ago I took a Quantum/Adic Scalar library apart....

[@ChipGuy]

So cool to look at. But those 30 tapes with 400 GB each will only hold 12 TB in total. In comparison 3 U.2 Server SSDs with 8TB each would only cost 2400 EUR + NAS. Today these robots need to offer quite a lot more storage than this older one.

[@PlaywithJunk]

Keep in mind this is about 20 years old. New LTO9 can hold 18TB (45TB compressed) per cartridge at $120 per piece. And for log term data storage, tapes are the better choice than HDDs.

[@ChipGuy]

@@PlaywithJunk Oh interesting. I looked on the website of the manufacuter and they advertised some new models with several PB of total storage capacity. Now I know why. That would make sense nowadays.

[@5argetech56]

$24,457.00 for the OVERLAND NEOXL 80 TAPE LIBRARY!😳😳 I'll buy a car instead! 🤣

[@survivor303]

for this, you dont need a license to drive it.

[@originalmianos]

I found one of these in the dumpster and pulled it apart. It is really surprising how low end the parts are. I thought the motors might be nice but they are cheapass brushed motors. Maybe lesser quality than in modern inkjet printers. The off the shelf parts like the tape drives stand out as being much better quality in contrast to the changer. All the tracks and metalwork are cheaply made. Not what I expected.

[@PlaywithJunk]

That's true. They rattle and shake like crazy but surprisingly they last for a long time.