Sounds to me like you have too many tape drives.  Did you tell your CFO
of your woes?  I'm sure this should be a consideration during your next
budget cycle.


Cheers,
Neil Strand
Storage Engineer - Legg Mason
Baltimore, MD.
(410) 580-7491
Whatever you can do or believe you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic.


-----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 3:23 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] 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


-----------------------------------------
The information contained in this message is intended only for the
personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) named above. If the
reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent
responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby
notified that you have received this document in error and that any
review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is
strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error,
please notify us immediately, and delete the original message.

IMPORTANT:  E-mail sent through the Internet is not secure. Legg Mason 
therefore recommends that you do not send any confidential or sensitive 
information to us via electronic mail, including social security numbers, 
account numbers, or personal identification numbers. Delivery, and or timely 
delivery of Internet mail is not guaranteed. Legg Mason therefore recommends 
that you do not send time sensitive 
or action-oriented messages to us via electronic mail.

This message is intended for the addressee only and may contain privileged or 
confidential information. Unless you are the intended recipient, you may not 
use, copy or disclose to anyone any information contained in this message. If 
you have received this message in error, please notify the author by replying 
to this message and then kindly delete the message. Thank you.