-----Richard Rhodes wrote: -----

>Sometimes I want to have TSM test out a tape drive.
>Something like . . .
> - pick a drive
> - pick a tape
> - have tsm mount the tape and read the label (or something)
> - tell me this succeeded or not
>
>Like yesterday . . . IBM repaired a tape drive.  After fixing it,
>IBM
>tells us it's fixed.  We put the drive online . . .and wait for TSM
>to use it.  For this particular drive, it was several hours before
>TSM used it.
>
>We also get this after an upgrade, or adding a new drive.  To get
>TSm to used any drive, let alone a particular drive, requires
>starting a migration, update stgpool, backup to tape, etc.  All
>are large processes.
>
>Is there a simple way to get TSM to exercise a particular tape drive?
>Or,what do you do in these situations?
>
>We have 3590 drives in 3494 libraries, and 3592 drives in 3584
>libraries.

You could leave the drive offline to TSM and use command line
utilities to mount, read, and dismount a tape. We have 3590 and
3592 drives in a 3494 library. We would use mtlib to mount and
dismount tapes, and IBMtapeutil to read from tapes. I don't know
whether mtlib supports 3484 libraries. If not, I suspect that IBM
supplies an analogous utility program for such libraries.