ADSM-L

Re: More on 3590K tape quality issues

2001-05-14 07:36:06
Subject: Re: More on 3590K tape quality issues
From: Richard Sims <rbs AT BU DOT EDU>
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 07:36:56 -0400
>When labelling 3590 (10Gb) tapes, approx 33% of tapes labelled return a
>"defective media" result. It shows up in AIX error logs and ADSM error logs.
>
>Anyone heard of this ?? Has anyone heard of this?

Stephen - We used 3590J tapes for several years and did not encounter such
          a problem.  It may be that your drives have a hypersensitive
microcode level.  Make sure that drive cleaning is going on, as can be
verified in the 3494's internal logs, or by doing 'mtlib -l /dev/lmcp0  -qL'
periodically and inspecting the "avail 3590 cleaner cycles" value.

>Will moving to AIX 4.3 and ADSM (TSM 3.7 or 4.1) Fix this??  I assume that
>ADSM version 3.1 knows nothing about 3590E drives.

Assume not.  3.1 knows all.  See the 3.1 server README section
"Support for IBM 3590 Model Exx Tape Drives".
I don't see that 3.7 or 4.1 would "fix" this, in that it's the drive
which is persistently telling the operating system about its travails.
3.7 or 4.1 might only dismiss soft errors as inconsequential.
It's the drive microcode and drive/tape conditions that control
what's going on.

    Richard Sims, BU
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