Overview

The Storage Heaven Mirage M240 disk-based virtual tape library (VTL) targets the growing need of Small to Medium Businesses (SMB) to more efficiently protect rapidly growing critical business data. The Mirage M240 disk-based VTL system utilizes cost effective RAID systems to deliver high performance reliable VTL solutions. The Mirage M240 uses existing tape backup software and procedures to record "virtual tape cartridges" on U320/160 LVD SCSI interface RAID systems. The Mirage M240 is seen by the backup application as a conventional tape library, but provides reliable high performance backup and quick restores typical of RAID systems. The Mirage M240 VTL is scalable and can grow with future requirements by attaching up to a total of four RAID systems to the existing Mirage M240 VTL. The Mirage M240 VTL delivers immediate improvements to backup and restore applications with a sustained speed of nearly 500GB per hour. The Mirage M240 supports use up to four virtual tape drives simultaneously, allowing up to four backup streams to run concurrently. The Mirage M240 VTL offers dramatic cost reduction compared with conventional backup solutions by reducing the number of tape drives and/or tape libraries required. After the VTL backup is completed, in a shorter backup window, virtual cartridges can be copied to physical tape cartridges for off site storage using the tape to tape copy feature available in backup software. Copying in high speed streaming mode minimizes wear (shoe shining) on the tape drive. Backup software can still respond to restore requests, using the Mirage M240 VTL, instantly while off-site tapes are still being copied. Mirage M240 VTL employs cost effective, reliable disk technology to improve backup speed, reliability and productivity in a smaller less complex footprint.