"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU> wrote on 02/14/2008
10:44:34 AM:
> I miss my old 3494 12 Frame HA Lib with 3592 FC Tape drives, It never
> skipped a beat even during and HA Failover, in 2 years only one Service
> call on a 3592 Drive for a Slow Fan... Never lost its inventory like our
> current 3584..... And 2 very confused fully loaded with Pass-through
> enabled STK SL8500's (LTO3 Drives)
>

Interesting.

We have two 3494 libraries - both with the HA feature.
We've had several instances where hardware problems have
caused a full outage on a lib.  I'm not sure the HA feature
is worth the price given how few actual problem there are
and that the HA has failed.

We also have two 3584 libraries (did NOT purchase HA).
>From a hardware
perspective I like the 3584 much better.  It has
fancy features, but at heart it's a standard scsi jukebox.
I really like how fast it is.  It's setup is easy, microcode
upgrades are easy, fast (Hmm, I think I said that).  The one
problem we've had is that every once in a while TSM seems to
get out of sync with it and we need to run a inventory (audit lib).
My big complaint with it is that there is no good way to get
information about the lib from our TSM server.  mtlib
will return a couple pieces of info, but not nearly what
it gets from a 3494.  Specifically, I wish it returned
cleaning cartridge info and status info (there should be
status info available about anything that causes a dial home events).

Our 3494's are much slower and more complicated. We are
planning a datacenter move.  We need to move both
a 3494 and a 3584.  In talking with IBM - the 3494 is
much more complicated for them to disassemble/assemble
than the 3584.  As has been been
mentioned in other emails - it has the catagory stuff you have to
deal with.  In all the years we've had them, I can't think of
a time where we ever had to do an inventory (audit lib).


My personal preference - I'll take the 3584 based on it being
faster and simpler, but both are fine libraries.

Rick

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