My two cents:

Most of the comments on this thread have had to do with the operation of the
3590's for on-site tapes.  And having very reliable devices for day-to-day
operations is important, and frequently is the difference between the ADSM
admin having a good day and having a bad day!

However, my position is that if you are sending tapes off-site for disaster
recovery purposes, there is only ONE ISSUE that counts - how much faith do
you have in the readability of that tape?

Far too many sites worry about their backups, and don't worry sufficiently
about recovery.  Most media works great if you never have to read it back!

For our systems that back up to 3490 technology (which is older than 3590,
but as reliable), we have one copy pool.  For our systems that back up to
DLT technology, we have found it necessary to make 2 copy pools.

Think twice about what you put in your vault!

(My opinions, based on my experience, only.)
***************************************************************
Wanda Prather
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
443-778-8769
wanda_prather AT jhuapl DOT edu

"Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think" -
Scott Adams/Dilbert
***************************************************************



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Armstrong, Stanley [SMTP:SArmst01 AT HARRIS DOT COM]
> Sent: Monday, March 01, 1999 5:32 PM
> To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject:      Re: Why is MagStar so good -- it just is
>
> Our 3494 library is connected to a SP2. We have 1400 3590's in fairly
> active
> rotation since April of 1996 (hundreds of mounts a day) and have had one
> media failure. The 3494 library was realigned more than once to have the
> cartridges stay in their slots and we have had three or four tapes stuck
> in
> a drive. Once freed they worked well. Compared to the problems I have had
> with 8mm this record is very good.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Weeks, Debbie [SMTP:debbie AT admin.usf DOT edu]
> > Sent: Monday, March 01, 1999 4:27 PM
> > To:   ADSM-L AT vm.marist DOT edu
> > Subject:      Re: Why is MagStar so good -- it just is
> >
> > Wow, that 's a pretty good record.  Wish I could say the same.  We have
> > one
> > unit that has been in use since December of 97, and a new that has only
> > been
> > in use for a couple of months.
> >
> > We have had several device and media failures.  I have had to recover
> > several fairly new tapes from offsite copies, and have a stack of tapes
> > that
> > I need to ship back to IBM (some with no tape inside).  We have had
> > trouble
> > with the media changer, the drives, the door, and the I/O port.  Not
> lots,
> > but enough that I wouldn't brag about it being low maint.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Tom Haddad [SMTP:thaddad AT COLUMBIAENERGYGROUP DOT COM]
> > > Sent: Monday, March 01, 1999 3:44 PM
> > > To:   ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> > > Subject:      Re: Why is MagStar so good -- it just is
> > >
> > > I have several 3570 devices with the oldest one in use since early 97
> > and
> > > up to
> > > now, no device or even media problems.
> > > (well except for that one new Magstar cartridge that was shipped to me
> > > with NO
> > > tape in it!...ooops)
> > > After using 8mm for some time, this is a big blessing for me (us).
> > > The improvement in data transfer rate has become most visible in the
> > > handling
> > > of large files (particularlydatabase support).
> > > We backup clients of NT (including Lotus Notes on NT ..full database
> > > backups),
> > > Netware and AIX.