ADSM-L

Re: DLT Drive Upgrade

2000-11-01 15:48:23
Subject: Re: DLT Drive Upgrade
From: "France, Don G (Pace)" <don.france-eds AT EDS DOT COM>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 12:47:36 -0800
Historically, some vendors will tell you things are backward-compatible but
mean that "you can read the old format, but you cannot write the old
format"... we had this with 3490 and 3590 upgrades.  In those cases, the
ADSM doc. clarified that we needed to mark "read-only" all the older-format
tapes in "filling" status, until they were reclaimed as scratch tapes.  Once
returned to scratch pool, the older tapes were usable at the new density;
the only significant issue was that the librarian had removed a bunch of
"filling" tapes, then got errors when re-inserting the tapes to the library
because ADSM (by default) tried to open read-write... setting to read-only
again made everyone happy.

I suggest you check the vendor spec. but also run a test to confirm your
understanding... and, also, check the spec. on your old media to see if the
new density is supported.

Regards,

Don France

Technical Architect - Unix Engineering/P.A.C.E.
San Jose, CA
mailto:dfrance AT pacbell DOT net
PACE - http://www.pacepros.com
Bus-Ph:   (408) 257-3037



 -----Original Message-----
From:   Palmadesso Jack [mailto:Jack.Palmadesso AT SWPC.SIEMENS DOT COM]
Sent:   Wednesday, November 01, 2000 11:03 AM
To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject:        DLT Drive Upgrade

 One of my libraries is getting close to maxing out its storage.  Its a
Breece Hill Q47 with 3 DLT4000 drives.  I'd like to replace the drives with
4 DLT8000 drives.  So far I've been hearing it should all be backward
compatible but mostly thats just from the sales people.  Some of the people
around here think a DLT4000 tape should be readable in 7000 or 8000 drive.
Is this correct?

If it is correct then is it possible to just replace the drives in the
library redefine them to AIX and ADSM and continue on?  In other words will
ADSM even notice?  We are running ADSM 3.1.2 L40 on an RS/6000.

I am thinking it should be fine but I am mainly wondering how new data gets
written back out to media?  Will new data being written to tape need to
write on a scratch volume or can it just be written on a filling volume?  Or
is all of this too much of a hassle and I should just buy a new library and
migrate the data over to it?  Is there any sort of procedure defined
someplace I could use?

Thanks for any input
Jack
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