Our local IBM CE told us we could get some microcode in which the
'SAR' reporting is turned off, but the catch is that you won't be
able to notice when a tape really gets bad.

Suppose I'd put this in a graph representing the amount of bad
tapes against a timeline, and extrapolate that graph, then I'm
sure I won't be happy with the results... in other words, we'll be
replacing hundreds of cartridges.


Last year I personally moved about 8000 cartridges in our STK
silo to 3590 cartridges, of which about 2000 were 3480s of 7 years
old and only 2 or 3 (yes, only two or three!) of them were unreadable.
The 3590 tapes in our 3494, which we upgraded to 3590E drives now
contains over a hundred bad tapes, which have been in the library
for at most 4 years and now they are 'old'.
Needless to say, this is not what I expected. *hangs head*

Anyway, thanks for the help && greetings,

    --Walter


"Burton, Robert" wrote:
>
>   This actually has nothing to do with 3590E drives. This is due to a new
> level of drive code
> that activates SAR reporting.  Sar data is stored on the tape label and
> keeps track of the tapes
> usage.  If the tape hits an IBM determined threshold (I'm unsure of what the
> values actually are)
> the tape is marked as read only and you are asked to move the data.
>
> We had this code installed on our 128 track drives and received the same
> error....After the
> first wave of move datas and tape replacements, we are not seeing these
> errors very frequently.
>
> We have since upgraded to the 3590e drives and are still not having any
> problems....
>
> Robert Burton
> Open Systems Storage Analyst
> Royal Bank of Canada
> (416) 348-3849
> Robert.Burton AT RoyalBank DOT com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexander Verkooijen [mailto:alexander AT SARA DOT NL]
> Sent: 1999, October, 21 11:03 AM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Many bad tapes after upgrade to 3590E
>
> Hello,
>
> We've upgraded the 3590 drives in our
> 3494 to 3590E two months ago.
>
> For the last two months we get the following
> messages (sometimes several times a day):
>
> ANR8830E Internal 3590 drive diagnostics detect excessive
> media failures for volume 000524. Access mode is now set
> to "read-only".
>
> ANR8831W Because of media errors for volume 000524, data
> should be removed as soon as possible.
>
> We've reported this problem to IBM. Their response is that
> the tapes are 'old' and can't handle the new 256 track format.
> It is quite possible that this is true, but we have more than 50
> tape set to read-only and this number is growing steadily.
>
> Is there anyone else out there having this problem after
> upgrading to 3590E???
>
> Regards,
>
> Alexander
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Alexander Verkooijen     SARA
> Systems Programmer       Academic Computing
> alexander AT sara DOT nl        Services Amsterdam
> -------------------------------------------

--
                  *** When you build it, they will come ***
                  *** When you build it, they will come ***

Walter de Jong
walter AT sara DOT nl        http://www.sara.nl/
Systems Programmer at SARA -- National Supercomputer Services

People should be able to e-mail me, spambots should not.