I have a IBM3584 library with 6 LTO2 drives.

Whenever I have a drive replaced (about once every 6 months over the
past 4 years), I test it by doing the following:

(Remember to delete/add the old and new drives first)

Take four of the six drives offline.

Do a move data on a storage pool tape.

Watch for activity on the two drives.

Once you see good activity, bring the other four drives back online.

Either cancel the move data or let it finish.

Doing the above test takes less than five minutes and is very
reassuring, since you can do it before the IBM CEs leave.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Richard Rhodes
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 2:23 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Is there a simple way to test a tape drive?

Sometimes I want to have TSM test out a tape drive.
Something like . . .
  - pick a drive
  - pick a tape
  - have tsm mount the tape and read the label (or something)
  - tell me this succeeded or not

Like yesterday . . . IBM repaired a tape drive.  After fixing it, IBM
tells us it's fixed.  We put the drive online . . .and wait for TSM
to use it.  For this particular drive, it was several hours before
TSM used it.

We also get this after an upgrade, or adding a new drive.  To get
TSm to used any drive, let alone a particular drive, requires
starting a migration, update stgpool, backup to tape, etc.  All
are large processes.

Is there a simple way to get TSM to exercise a particular tape drive?
Or,
what do you do in these situations?

We have 3590 drives in 3494 libraries, and 3592 drives in 3584
libraries.

Thanks

Rick


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