Networker

Re: [Networker] LTO Tapes being marked full prematurely

2003-10-08 13:21:49
Subject: Re: [Networker] LTO Tapes being marked full prematurely
From: "McDougal, Philip H" <PMcDougal AT JENNER DOT COM>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 12:19:47 -0500
George, what bios and driver version are you running for the 39160?
 
One version, u160_xp_2000_sp4 (I think, it's been a while, could have been 
sp3a)  gave me a beautiful BSOD.  I finally got things moving with version 
u160fms40_sp5_s1  (driver version 6.1.6300 on 7/15/03) for the 39160 (for 
windows 2000).  The Bios I'm runnig is 3.10.0
 
I've also seen the "\Device\scsi\adpu160m4,did not respond".  The m4 tells me 
what bus/drive is affected.  Unfortuntately, as George so eloquently put it, 
it's hard to tell what is causing the point of failure and it's quite 
frustrating to continously deal with an issue thats been around for a while.
 
Regards,
Phil.
 
-----Original Message----- 
From: George Sinclair [mailto:George.Sinclair AT NOAA DOT GOV] 
Sent: Wed 10/8/2003 11:41 AM 
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [Networker] LTO Tapes being marked full prematurely



        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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