Quality Awards: Big and small Quantum tape libraries lead the field

Rich Castagna, Editorial Director
Ezine

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Initial product quality

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About the survey

The Storage magazine/SearchStorage.com Quality Awards are designed to identify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use. Results are derived from a survey of qualified readers who assess products in five main categories: sales-force competence, initial product quality, product features, product reliability and technical support. Our methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share as a factor. Indeed, our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardless of vendor name, reputation or size. Products are rated on a scale of 1.00 to 8.00, where 8.00 is the best score. A total of 783 respondents provided 930 tape library evaluations.

Enterprise. Quantum built an average score of 6.74 by beating the competition on every statement in this category. But once again, all the vendors scored well, with HP, IBM and Oracle trailing the leader but just 0.07 points apart. And all vendors earned 6.00 or higher on all six of the category statements.

ENTERPRISE TAPE LIBRARIES: INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY

Enlarge ENTERPRISE TAPE LIBRARIES: INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY diagram.

Breaking down the numbers

  • Quantum’s scoring was again notably consistent, topped by three 6.83 ratings for products that require little daily intervention, provide ease of use and represent good value.
  • Tape vendors must be doing something right: IBM (6.63) and HP (6.62) had their highest marks for ease of use, while Oracle’s 6.49 was its second highest score.
  • The group’s 6.50 average in this category stands second only to the previous survey’s 6.67.

Midrange. Quantum might have been building up its momentum as it charged through the other categories: It cracked the 7.00 mark for four of the six statements in initial product quality on its way to a category average of 7.03 -- one of its two 7.00-plus category scores. Oracle, with a score of 6.75 that could have been a category winner in other years, placed second, with IBM not far off the pace at 6.65.

MIDRANGE TAPE LIBRARIES: INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY

Enlarge MIDRANGE TAPE LIBRARIES: INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY diagram.

Breaking down the numbers

  • Quantum snapped up 7.00-plus scores for needing little intervention (7.18), ease of configuration (7.06), good value (7.06) and easy installation (7.00).
  • Oracle just missed the 7.00 mark with a 6.96 for ease of installation and scored well for ease of use and configuration.
  • All the scores in this category were strong; the overall category average of 6.54 effectively tied the previous high of 6.55.

This was first published in December 2011

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