Despite surprisingly little noise from vendors, tape drives should reap better price/performance from the new interface standard SCSI is used in tape drives, not just disk drives, but there’s been little public attention paid to how SAS would be deployed in tape libraries. Seagate’s Franco Castaldini notes that no tape vendors have yet attended the SCSI Trade Association’s “plugfests,” where vendors test SAS products, for example.Optimus Solutions consultant Greg Hartzog believes that SAS could be a great benefit to tape libraries because of the increased cable length and the smaller, more flexible cable size. He says his customers like the idea of external but direct attached tape libraries for departmental and other local backup. LSI Logic’s Harry Mason agrees, saying that tape libraries have not fit well in most enterprises outside of FC (Fibre Channel) connections because tape libraries don’t typically connect to a backplane as disk drives do but instead connect via cables.But FC tape-drive adapters cost about $1,000, Hartzog notes, making IT think twice before deploying them. “SAS tape should easily compete on price,” he says. Mason says he’s seen “a lot of interest from the tape providers in SAS designs.” One reason is that the SCSI protocols have “always been a fairly good portal to the robotics of the tape drive,” says Kevin Schoonover, director of engineering at distributor Arrow Enterprise Storage. With its SCSI basis and better cabling option, tape providers can now consider SAS instead of the pricier FC, gaining the benefits of a cabled connection without having to migrate to a different command set, Schoonover says. Technology Industry