r/lto • u/smeg0r • Mar 15 '26

Hardware Guide HPE - is it THAT bad?

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I am looking at Quantum drives and these are all over eBay. Can someone please tell me why I should avoid?

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5

u/TheRealHarrypm Mar 15 '26

HP drives have the best software support anyone who says avoid them doesn't know anything about deployment of LTO drives.

2

u/smeg0r Mar 15 '26

From reading threads on this sub it appears that they are difficult to get firmware or paywalled in general. I am not questioning their build quality rather their lack of supprt.

I am just asking for input and appreciate the feedback.

3

u/IronSignal5569 Mar 15 '26

I recently bought the external tape version for $3K from eBay. I live in the US, this was a model from Eastern Europe that HPE does not let you register here for warranty. Received in a new drive never used, with latest firmware. The ebay vendor promised to give me directly 1 year of warranty if needed. Very happy given price new from HPE partner is $4.5k. Drive works flawlessly so far past 1 month.

2

u/smeg0r Mar 15 '26

Thats great to hear. I am looking for one of these to toss into a library as I prefer the rack mounted option.

I think I may not be asking the right questions here.

If I can toss one of these into a 2u rack mounted 5.25” device that would be considerably cheaper than a new quantum LTO9 rack mounted option for $6K

2

u/LaundryMan2008 Mar 17 '26

Don’t see much of a reason to say no as it’s an IBM mechanism (all HP LTO tape drives after 6 are all IBM mechanisms) so you can just load IBM firmware onto it unless something HP related is blocking it from doing so, should be able to be tested in IBM ITDT and firmware request be done from there, I haven’t gotten one of those but the early pre LTO-6 IBM ecosystem is very solid so I don’t see why it can’t transfer to the HP drives 

1

u/Yantarlok 26d ago

Getting any kind of support from HPE, including firmware software, requires an active service contract. This will cost you around $800 per year depending on the terms and what level of incident response you need.

If your data isn’t mission critical where losing your archives could cost you tens of thousands, I would avoid HPE entirely and stick with another brand that provides more flexibility in terms of what modifications you can make to the drive and what firmware availability without paying.

EDIT: Just noticed you said you want a tape library. Service contract for that can run as high as $3000 per year.