We have HP LTO3 drives that were shipped with our Quantum PX510
library and they work just fine. We are using Networker 7.2.2 on HPUX
and have had next to no problems with the drives (10 months old). I'd
send along the stinit.def file, but we don't have one.

Ken

On 1/29/07, George Sinclair <George.Sinclair AT noaa DOT gov> wrote:

Can anyone recommend which drive manufacturer to use for LTO-3 (HP, IBM
or Quantum (Certance)?
Does anyone overtly not recommend IBM or had bad experiences with these?

We have NW 7.2.2 running on a Linux RH storage node with a Storagetek
L80 tape library, currently
running older Seagate LTO-1 drives. STK shipped us four IBM LTO-3 drives
for our LTO-3 upgrade (same tape library).

I can't get any technical support from IBM since the equipment is not
under contract with IBM.
I've been unable to locate an online manual for these drives. I searched
through IBM's site and elsewhere
and could not find anything that discusses any specifics regarding these
drives in regards to keyword values for Linux
stinit.def entries like timeout, long-timeout, etc.  Legato's
documentation specifically states that Linux uses stinit.def,
and their hardware compatibility guide suggests using the Linux st
driver as this has been tested.

I found some information at Quantum's site and one other st_conf.c
document pertaining to Sun, and these seem to corroborate
that the density code would be 0x44 for LTO-3, 0x42 for LTO-2, etc. but
nothing about the various keyword values or timeout
values.

Legato's documentation is very limited. The only place I could find a
sample stinit.def was under the Linux installation guide (pdf), but this
doesn't even include LTO, and mentions that the compatibility guides
contain stinit information, but I couldn't find anything under there
related to stinit.def. The Linux installation guide suggests that you
"...refer to the tape device manufacturer's requirements for
the specific device and model being used."

Was wondering if we should request that STK take these drives back and
replace them with HP?  My main concern
is not being able to get the support for these drives in terms of the
stinit.def entries, etc., but if there are other reasons
that we should NOT consider using IBM drives, I'd be curious to know.

STK didn't seem to know much about stinit.def and mentioned that it's
not needed, but I'm doubtful on that.

If anyone is using IBM LTO drives with Linux, I'd be interested to know
what your stinit.def file looks like and any help.

Thanks.

George

--
George Sinclair - NOAA/NESDIS/National Oceanographic Data Center
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- Any opinions expressed in this message are NOT those of the US Govt. -

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