Installation of the IBM TS3500 tape library at CSCS

In early 2013 an automated tape library (IBM TS3500) was installed at CSCS increasing the storage capacity up to  ~ 27.4 PB   petabytes of uncompressed data. The library is composed of 16 frames plus 2 service bays cabinets and can contain up to 18‘257 tapes moved by two robots (in the actual configuration there are 24 LTO5 drives). The Library is part of the Backup System (IBM Tivoli  Storage Manager) and is integrated into the Hierarchical Storage Management environment (HSM) which put on tapes files that have not been accessed since long time.

The movie shows the different phases of the installation of the tape library: from positioning the first frame to loading the tapes.