We also asked respondents to tell us if they'd purchase the same product again. It's important to note that this isn't a question about buying intentions, but rather a key measure of hindsight. On the enterprise side, 88.1% of StorageTek SL-Series users said they'd buy that product again—this was also the highest percentage among all library vendors in the survey. In the midrange arena, nearly 86% of Spectra Logic's 10K/20K/T50 respondents said they'd buy those products again. In previous surveys, the responses to this question often didn't match the rankings of the survey; for tape libraries there was a very close correlation between buy-again numbers and category winners.
Part of a backup solution
Tape libraries are one-third of the B/R solution, with B/R software and tape devices being the other two-thirds. By combining the findings of this survey with those from our B/R software survey, IT organizations can assess what combinations of components are likely to yield the most satisfactory system for their environments.
BIO: Rich Castagna is Editor-in-Chief of Storage; Phil Goodwin is president of Diogenes Analytical Laboratories Inc.
Products included in our survey
The following products were included in Storage magazine's Quality Awards tape library survey.
Enterprise-class
When you register for SearchStorage.com, you’ll also receive targeted emails from my team of award-winning editorial writers. Our goal is to keep you informed on the hottest topics, the latest news and the biggest challenges you face as a storage professional today.
Requires Free Membership to View
Midrange
About the survey
The Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Award for tape libraries is the fourth in our series of survey-based service and reliability awards. The Quality Awards are designed to help identify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliability in actual use. The results are derived from a survey of qualified Storage readers, who assess products in five main categories: sales competence, product features, initial quality, 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 product on the market regardless of vendor name, reputation or size. Products are rated on a scale from 1.0-8.0, where 8.0 is the most favorable possible score.
Previous Quality Award winners
HDS sweeps Quality Awards on arraysWhich backup software is best?
What are the best midrange arrays?