Shopping: LTO Tape Drive

Our LTO tape library took a dump a couple weeks ago, so I need to find a replacement. These are my notes while I look into the drives available to see what I'll recommend:

First, I started with a search for all LTO tape libraries sorted by lowest price first on CDW.com.

My requirements (in no particular order):

• At least 100GB/200GB capacity
• Backward compatible with our Ultrium 1 100GB/200GB tapes (in case we need to restore data from them)
• We have about 12 hours to back up about 250GB of data, so we need a minimum of 6MB/sec but we'll double that to make room for expansion, so 12MB/sec. -Shouldn't be hard.
• It's a small company, so price is a factor.
• Our old library had a Ultra 160 connection, so that'd be the easiest to go with this time around although it (does/does not) have room for a (what kind?) card if we want to go with something better/faster.
• Holds at least 7 or 8 tapes at a time.
  

So, here are our options:

• HP StorageWorks 1/8 G2 Tape Autoloader Ultrium 232:
  
• Ultra320 SCSI
• 100GB/200GB Ultrium 1 tapes
• web interface to manage the drive remotely
• 16/32 MBps
  
• $2,895.99, or $3,099.00 -for the bundle which includes the rack mount kit, 8 tapes, and a jumpered power cord.
  
• HP StorageWorks 1/8 G2 Tape Autoloader Ultrium 448:
• Ultra320 SCSI
  
• 200GB/400GB LTO Ultrium 2 tapes
• backward compatible with Ultrium 1 tapes
• web interface for management
• 24/48 MBps
  
• $3,049.00, or $3,049.00 -for the bundle which includes the rack mount kit, 8 tapes, and a jumpered power cord.

• The rest of the models aren't backward compatible with our Ultrium 1 tapes, so I guess our decision will be between these two.