Unlike those who have responded so far, I have seen more than my fair
     share of problems with the 3494 L10 D12 with 2 3490e drives and 4 3590
     Magstar drives.  The problem I am having is the 3494 gets unload
     failures on the 3590 drives that results in any process running on
     that drive to fail.(usually migration)  IBM has been working on this
     since July with no fix in sight.  Do I have a LEMON or is anybody else
     having similar problems?

     I am also adding another ADSTAR server which will share the 3494 and
     have 2 of the 4 Magstar tapes dedicated to it.  Is anyone out there
     sharing there 3494 between 2 Adstar servers?  I would appreciate any
     comments.

     Thank you!
     Brian Pennington
     Unisys Corporation
     513-872-8746 work
     513-872-1048 fax

     brian_pennington AT aici DOT com


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: MagStar drives and 3494 Library
Author:  "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU> at SMTP
Date:    11/18/96 9:55 PM


On Fri, 15 Nov 1996, Bill Koeneman wrote:

We have had a 3495 tape library with 4 MAGSTAR drives attached to a
RS/6000 in operation since April.  With the exception of a problem with
one of the drives which took a while to diagnose, we have been extremely
pleased with the performance and reliability of the units.  We find mount
times consistently under 30 seconds.  We do not get the 30GB estimated
capacity of the tape with compression, more like an average of 10-13GB,
but we back up lots of graphics which are already stored compressed
anyway.  Without any hesitation, I would highly recommend the 3494 and the
MAGSTAR drives.

Ann Slaughter
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C.

The views expressed are my own and may not reflect the views of the
Library.





> MS Mail To:  X400
>
>
> >From Bill Koeneman -- Koch Industries, Wichita Kansas (koenemab AT kochind 
> >DOT com)
>
> We are a prospective ADSM user (RS6000-G40,3494-L12, 2 MagStar Drives) and
> would like to get some feedback on the reliability of both the MagStar
> drives and the 3494 robotics unit. Would like to know user experiences with
> these devices (frequency of problems, time to repair, types of problems,
> shelf life of tapes etc.). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
>