Exabyte Equals Extra Durability And Capacity
The tape drive is fast and reliable, with two choices in tape capacity and an affordable upgrade that will further double the drive's maximum capacity. Solution providers can install the hardware once, and increase their customers' backup capacity as neededwithout having to sell them new hardware. Customers will get the greatest ROI on their hardware investment, and solution providers can still profit by performing upgrades down the road.
Traditional tape backup devices store data in tracks that are formatted onto the tape media. But Exabyte's VXA tape drives use packet technology to record data on tape, in much the same way as data is transmitted over the Internet. The VXA tapes offer greater capacity and speed over other alternativesDLT, LTO and DAT, for examplewith top-notch integrity when restoring data.
VXA tape cartridges also offer durability and resistance under the most extreme circumstances. Exabyte claims that even VXA cartridges shaken to extremes, covered with volcanic dust, frozen in blocks of ice and boiled in water have still been able to provide complete data restores. And unlike disk-to-disk backup solutions, the VXA tape cartridges can be brought off-site for safekeeping.
Tape cartridges for the VXA-172 drive are available in two sizes, and the drive uses compression technology to squeeze as much data as possible onto each tape. The maximum capacity of each tape cartridge varies depending on the data being stored. Exabyte's type X6 VXA cartridges hold 40 Gbytes of native data and up to 80 Gbytes of compressed data, while its type X10 VXA cartridges hold 86 Gbytes of native data and up to 172 Gbytes of compressed data. The cartridges typically cost $15 and $29 each, respectively. At those prices, backups cost as little as 17 cents per gigabyte.
As previously noted, the VXA-172 drive can be upgraded to nearly double its standard capacity, or 320 Gbytes of compressed data, with a simple license update. Available in late May, the upgrade kit will have a list price of $530 and a street price closer to $350. The kit will include one 320-Gbyte type X23 VXA tape.
Exabyte's plug-and-play VXA-172 drive is easy to set up, so the solution provider doesn't have to waste time installing and configuring the hardware. The drive is compatible with all major operating systems and backup software. The drive also is reliable, with a meantime-between-failure rating of 300,000 hours. But in the event of any kind of malfunction, Exabyte's standard three-year advanced exchange warranty ensures a quick replacement.
With 2:1 compression applied and a SCSI-3 Ultra 160 interface, the VXA-172 drive offers data-transfer rates of up to 24 MBps. That allows the backup of 172 Gbytes, which can be put on one VXA-172 tape in less than two hours. VXA-172 drives with the SCSI interface are available now, and models with Serial-ATA and FireWire connectivity will be released later this year. An internal version of the VXA-172 has a list price of $965 and a street price of about $700. Even at street price, resellers can still make about a 20 percent profit.
Exabyte's three-level channel program is broken down into Premier, Authorized and Registered levels. In a perfect world, that would allow solution providers to readily gauge the initial commitment to the company, while still anticipating overall revenue from partnering with Exabyte. But when queried by the CRN Test Center for this review, the company was vague as to what the individual commitments were for each level.
With the information provided by Exabyte, Test Center engineers were able to determine that the Registered level is aimed at entry-level partners and offers margins of roughly 18 percent. Registered partners are required to participate in yearly training seminars and meet sales goals, which are determined when the reseller joins the program. Partners at the Authorized and Premier levels can expect higher margins, deal registration, sales SPIFs and ongoing promotions. The level assigned is based upon agreed sales goals and the amount of training. Although the company did not provide the actual metrics for each level, the channel program does seem to offer the growth and support opportunities that one would expect from a channel-orientated vendor.
