ADSM-L

Re: Tape Reliability Recommendations

2003-02-13 19:19:31
Subject: Re: Tape Reliability Recommendations
From: Steve Bennett <steve_bennett AT ADMIN.STATE.AK DOT US>
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 15:18:48 -0900
Colby,

We have been using the Exabyte M2 drives and tapes for a couple of years
now. We did have lots of problems and wore out several drives before we
found out that that running our four drive library on one 29160
interface was causing the drives and tapes to wear out. We reconfigured
and now only have two drives on each 29160 and the problems have almost
completely ceased.

We have two TSM server sites. Total primary pool storage use is about
3tb. In site 1 we have one library with 80 slots and four M2 drives for
our primary tapepool. We also have two external M2 drives that we create
offsite copypool tapes with. The tapes from one copypool go across town
by courier and the other copypool tapes are sent DHL to site 2 in
another city. At site 2 we have a 3494 with two 3590e drives for our
primary tapepool and use the same drives for creating copypool tapes
that go across the street. Another set of external M2 drives create
copypool tapes that are sent DHL to site 1. Each site is the disaster
recovery site for the other.

I have run a complete recovery test using the media that was sent from
site 1 to site 2 and had no problems reading the M2 tapes.

The M2 drives are better than the M2 media. Heavy usage of the tapes
would require regular replacement. Not like the 3590 drive and tapes
that we beat to death and as they say "takes a lickin and keeps on
tickin".

In my experience Exabyte support is marginal at best. It takes an act of
God for them to admit that one of their tapes might be defective.

Contact me offline if you want to discuss further.


Colby Morgan wrote:
>
> We are currently running TSM 5.1.5 on Win2k with an IBM Mammoth-2 drive for
> offsite copypools.  We have had problems with both our onsite M2 and offsite
> M2 drives at our disaster recovery center.  IBM has replaced the drive more
> than a dozen times in the last two years and Exabyte has replaced countless
> tapes.  Most recently we are experiencing a high rate of media write
> failures on a newly replaced drive as well as media read failures in DR
> testing, both using brand new 225m AME media.
>
> Is anybody else out their running an IBM/Exabyte Mammoth-2 drive and if so
> what kind of results do you see?
>
> My real question is what is the most common/reliable removable tape
> technologies for the Intel TSM environment?  We are considering switching
> technologies and I wanted to solicit testimonies on other technologies (DLT,
> LTO, SDLT,etc...).
>
> We currently copy around 135GB to 300GB offsite daily.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Colby

--

Steve Bennett, (907) 465-5783
State of Alaska, Information Technology Group, Technical Services
Section

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