Would probably be somewhat helpful to know what platform you are running
on.... also, does the OS see the 9 devices or do just 5 appear available
any given time?


~Rick


-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Laks, Brian
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 10:32 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] 5 out of 9 aint bad

I have 9 LTO-4 drives connected to our TSM server, only 5 of them work
at any time after upgrading to a new fiber card.

We have tried two different fiber cards (qlogic and emulex) and still
only 5 drives.

We have Confirmed latest drivers and firmware with IBM support.  The old
2gig fiber card still works with all 9 drives, but is considerably
slower than 5 drives on an 4g card.

The new cards are both multi port cards, but only one port is being
used.  Multipath drivers are not being used.  9 drives are zoned to one
port.

IBM support believes it to be hardware since the old card works, so we
purchased a second card of different manufacture.  Now the problem
exists on two fiber cards of different manufacture so I'm real reluctant
to think its a hardware problem any more.

Interestingly, the 5 good drives vary.  I can unload the drivers and
reload everything and drives that were previously unavailable work while
drives that were working are then unavailable.  It seems kind of random.
All the dives show up in the OS, and TSMDLST show them all as well.  I
uninstalled old drivers and reinstalled them exactly as per IBM support
instructions, and rebuilt the drive and library paths in tsm during each
reload as per IBM support guidelines.

Has anyone seen anything like this?  I'm absolutely baffled.  I'm
thinking we are going to have to zone 5 drives to one port and 4 drives
to the other, but the SAN admin type is reluctant since all 9 drives
work with the original card.  My guess is that somewhere in the drivers
its smart enough to know that 9 LTO-4's to a single 4g port is silly in
the first place.

Maybe someone wants 4 LTO-4's so this problem just goes away :)  The 5
drives work with fewer problems and better throughput than the 9 drives
on the old card.

Thanks for reading, Have a great day.

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