We have Seagate, first generation LTO drives, and we occasionally see
this problem. When it occurs, there is typically always a SCSI error(s)
in the system log somewhere around the time the tape was prematurely
marked full. In other words, something happens on the SCSI bus,
NetWorker sees it, freaks out and marks the tape full because in its
little mind, it's doing you a favor by regarding the tape as suspect, as
in "I'm not gonna write to this tape any more because something
happened, and I'm not convinced that the tape was not the culprit". I
guess I can remotely understand the reasoning, but it is annoying when
the tape has plenty of space, and you know it was just a SCSI error. The
real question is, what causes these SCSI errors? They seem sporadic and
unpredictable at best.
For a while we were under the impression that it was a drive problem,
but then the attention turned to the Adaptec SCSI driver as has been
observed and commented on by several people in this forum. We checked
cables, replaced cables with the proper LVD ones, replaced the
terminators, and at least two drives. Same problems. We're running Linux
on the storagenode server, and the library is a StorageTek L80. We
finally replaced the kernel code with a new version of the Adaptec
driver code to see if that would fix the problem. The problem has
occurred once since the update which I think was maybe two weeks ago. I
should note that we're also running an ATL P1000 SDLT tape library on
this same storagenode server, but it runs on a separate Adaptec card.
Maybe having both libraries on there, even though they're running on
separate cards, is a possible problem? I should also note that in the
case of the StorageTek library, two LTO drives and the picker share one
channel, and the other two drives share the other channel, each channel
has one SCSI cable going to its respective port on the back of the dual
channel Adaptec 39160 card. The ATL has two drives and one picker which
share a single channel (one SCSI cable) to its dual Adaptec 39160 card.
Two separate cards. We also have the latest BIOS on both cards. Who
knows?
George
"Willeat, Todd" wrote:
>
> Hi Phillip,
>
> I'm also having problems with the LTO-2 drives in my i2000. We keep getting
> and error 6 on the drive, which is supposed to be a media problem.
> Unfortunately, when that happens, the library takes that drive offline and
> NetWorker just sits for hours trying to access it and doesn't do anything
> with the other drives that still work.
>
> BTW, the drives are IBM, not HP...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: McDougal, Philip H [mailto:PMcDougal AT JENNER DOT COM]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 10:04 AM
> To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: [Networker] LTO Tapes being marked full prematurely
>
> Is it me or are there quite a few people who keep having LTO-2 drive
> failures??? I have an ADIC Scalar i2000 with 6 LTO-2 drives and had 1 DOA,
> another failure about a week later. Last night (almost 2 months later), I
> have 2 more dead drives.
>
> Do you think it's the ADIC library or the HP drives that are the problem (or
> both)? I'd like to know who I should be venting to before I go off on both
> of them ;-)
>
> Phil.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rada Uspensky [mailto:ruspensky AT RA.ROCKWELL DOT COM]
> Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 4:38 PM
> To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: [Networker] LTO Tapes being marked full prematurely
>
> We had similar situation due to the tape drives malfunction.
> It started slowly but in a couple weeks we had hundred tapes marked full
> prematurely.
> Check the event log for the drive related errors and contact the vendor to
> fix or replace drives.
>
> Davina Treiber <Treiber AT HOTPOP DOT COM>@LISTMAIL.TEMPLE.EDU> on 10/06/2003
> 04:22:39 PM
>
> Please respond to Legato NetWorker discussion
> <NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU>; Please respond to Davina
> Treiber
> <Treiber AT HOTPOP DOT COM>
>
> Sent by: Legato NetWorker discussion <NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU>
>
> To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> cc:
>
> Subject: Re: [Networker] LTO Tapes being marked full prematurely
>
> Maine, Daniel wrote:
> > Hello!
> >
> > We are using Networker 7x on a Win2000 server. It is attached to a
> STKL180
> > by SCSI.
> >
> > We are experiencing problems with the LTO tapes being marked "full"
> before
> > they have used it's allotted space. Some are being marked "full' with
> only
> > 2g.
> >
>
> What brand of drives and what brand of tapes?
>
> If they are Seagate drives, they will only work well with certain tape
> brands. Maxell/Fuji/Seagate are the only ones certain to work, although
> some others are Maxell or Fuji rebadged.
>
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