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Gmail mystery solved: Google went to Sun for backup

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Oracle tape and IBM LTO drives saved the day, says insider

By Chris Mellor • Get more from this author

Posted in Storage , 15th April 2011 09:24 GMT

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Google's lost emails were apparently restored from Oracle StreamLine 8500 tape libraries using LTO drives.

Up until now the tape infrastructure Google used to restore its lost emails has been unknown. Our understanding from informed industry sources is that Google has 16 StorageTek StreamLine 8500 tape libraries with both StorageTek proprietary tape drives and IBM LTO drives.

The lost Google emails were retrieved from LTO format tapes via the IBM drives.

This is one of the greatest tape library customer reference stories ever and it's not public. Amazing. ®

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