We've been using LTO2 here since December, 2003.  We have 14 IBM 3580
drives (SCSI), and have replaced 5 drives in that time period (once
twice).  We move about 1.5 TB/day.  We make heavy use of collocation, so we
see 300-900 mount cycles/day (perhaps more important than bytes
moved).  Overall, we view this failure rate as acceptable.  Most of these
replacements were done aggressively (i.e., they may not have actually been
necessary), but the vendor (ADIC) decided to replace the drive to minimize
possible future pain.

I think the LTO1 drives may have been a tad more reliable.  Make sure you
have the latest Atape driver.

..Paul

At 02:53 PM 6/1/2005, Kauffman, Tom wrote:

OK -- It was the only possibility I could think of at the time.

I feel your pain (we had DLT-7000 drives in an STK box that seemed to
die on a monthly basis), but I've not seen any issues with IBM LTO2
drives here.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Zoltan Forray/AC/VCU
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 12:12 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: LTO2 unreliability

Environment is not an issue.  This is in a *REAL* computer room (raised
floors, UPS/conditioned electricity, industrial-strength cooling).



"Kauffman, Tom" <KauffmanT AT NIBCO DOT COM>
Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
06/01/2005 01:00 PM
Please respond to
"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>


To
ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
cc

Subject
Re: [ADSM-L] LTO2 unreliability






Zoltan --

I have an IBM 3584 with 10 LTO2 drives, installed last August. So far,
I've had one service call -- one of the drives swallowed a tape and
wouldn't let go of it. If I remember correctly, we got the tape out but
replaced the drive just as a precaution.

I pump something over 3 TB of data through the library daily, most to
LTO2 tapes. All my offsite copies are written to LTO1 tapes (with the
LTO2 drives), and runs to about 1.6 TB daily.

Could you be having an environmental problem that's contributing to the
failures?

Tom Kauffman
NIBCO, Inc

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Zoltan Forray/AC/VCU
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 10:54 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: LTO2 unreliability

Are all LTO2 drives as unreliable as I have been experiencing ?

We installed our first 3583 with 2-LTO2 drives, about a year ago. Of the
two drives, both have been replaced at least one. I just replace one of
the replacements, again (wouldn't power up). The first replacement was
after about a month of usage !

We just upgraded our configuration by adding 2-drives to the existing
library and purchasing another 3583 with 4-drives.  These have now been
in
use for about 2-weeks.

Of the 2-new drives added to the old library, one of them is already
showing signs of problems (shows A! on the panel, which the book says
drive hardware fault).

Of my 9+ years of experience with 3590 (B and E) drives, I have never
seen
so many failures. Especially considering the amount of tapes that have
been fed through the 3590 drives (the 4-E drives run through over
200-mounts a day).

Is this normal ?

Also, no I do not push what I consider a lot of data through these
drives
(~ 1TB per week).

What kind of experiences do other folks have with IBM 3580 LTO2 drives,
when it comes to reliability ?

--
Paul Zarnowski                         Ph: 607-255-4757
719 Rhodes Hall, Cornell University    Fx: 607-255-8521
Ithaca, NY 14853-3801                  Em: psz1 AT cornell DOT edu