Curtis Stewart wrote:
>
> > "This is interesting.  In Yr3, if we just remove the remaining 3590s in
> > the
> > last L12 frame and replace them with bare slots, can the slots hold 3592
> > tapes?  Does it mean the L12 doesn't need to be converted into a L22
> > before
> > it can hold 3592 tapes?"
>
> My understanding is you only need to upgrade the L12s to L22s if you plan
> to use them to house 3592s. The slots are capable of holding either media.

We're looking at adding 3592s to our 3494/3590 environment as well.

Curtis is correct that you don't need to upgrade to an L12 if you're
not going to put 3592 drives into that frame.  However, you do need to
have a new enough Library Manager (the OS/2 box in the L12) to support
the 3592 drives.  Since you only have 3590E drives, you probably will
need an upgrade to the Library Manager (if you had 3590H drives, you'd
probably be fine).  Check with your sales rep. and support folks to
figure that out for sure.

And yes, the form factor for the 3592 cartridges is the same as for the
3590 carts (modulo the little nooks and crannies that the drives use to
ensure they don't load the wrong type of cartridge, like 3490 vs. 3590).
So both types can coexist in the same 3494 slots.

Eliza Lau wrote:
>
> We have one L12 and two D12s.  Two 3590 drives in each.

Since you've got 2 D12 frames, you might consider moving two 3590s from
one D12 to the other, then upgrading the first to a D22 and adding the
first two 3592 drives there.  Then as your need for the 3590s decreases,
you can pull them out one at a time (and add drives to the D22 as growth
and budget dictate).  And the D22 will support up to 12 3592 drives.
Don't forget to factor maintenance cost on the old drives into your
decision, though.

We're looking at keeping our 3590E drives (but upgrading to H for the
extra capacity plus the fibre connectivity) as well as adding 3592
drives.  My thinking is that the 3590s are still useful for the large
number of collocated nodes that don't need anywhere near 300 GB.  So we
preserve our 3590K tape investment for a while longer, but consolidate
the big backups (Oracle, huge fileservers, etc.) on the high-capacity
3592 tapes.

--
Hello World.                                    David Bronder - Systems Admin
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