LTO Tapes

[tzong]

We currently have about 2000 LTO Imation tapes. Everyweek, we get about 8 tapes which tsm server log shows media faults, and sometimes even 25 bad tapes. We send Imation for testing, always comeing back without any problem. How are your tapes doing? Any following posts are welcome.

 

[unogru]

Hi ! We have about 700 LTO1 tapes from IBM. I have had 2 bad tapes in 1 year in our 3584 library

 

[rcard]

We get the occasional media error on our LTO tapes, but have found them to be temporary errors, i.e once the tapes have become scratch and are then re-used we do not have any problems re-using them. We use 3 different manufacturers' tapes and I would say the occurrence of these 'media errors' is about the same with all three. I suppose there are bound to be a few read/write errors on LTO just as there are on any other tape technology!

 

[pbanghart]

G'day,



I recently went through several weeks of drive problems and microcode upgrades on my IBM 3484 LTO library...one of the first questions asked was "what type of media are you using?" (we happen to use Fuji). From what I understand, there is a problem with a particular vendor's LTO media (I think they even narrowed it down to a specific lot number)...which vendor, I don't recall (I know it wasn't Fuji!), but I would ask your LTO drive vendor if they're aware of any media problems with Imation media. If you ask Imation to test Imation media, I'd think it might always come back positive...???



By the by, our problem ended up being a combination of microcode and a hardware "correction"...we've been runnning great for the last several weeks, not a media or drive error to be seen... :grin:



Regards,





-PB

 

[terryphillips]

Hi,

In the last 4 montrhs since being invovled witrh TSm our LTO drives have thrown up over 20 bad tapes. After checking through the wealth of info on this site I narrowed it down to the media. 17 tapes were returned to our supplier for a replaement. We then then had another 4 bad tapes from the new batch. There were mainly when loading and unloading the tapes from the drives. It appears that the bottom of those tapes where the cog/spring loads the tape on the drive mount is a fine set of grouves which holds the tape and stops it spinning out of line were too narrow therfore a manufacture problem. These has been changed again wiithout further problems.

Tel

 

[tzong]

We put these bad tapes on our development drives for testing. 90% of these bad tapes turned out no problem. So we replaced some IBM LTO drives, still get many bad tapes on these new tape drives.

 

[hakanen]

Hi,

I have seen microcode upgrades on the drives (IBM LTO drives in 358x) do wonders.

I/O errors on tape and slow performance on tape to tape copy fixed by a simple Firmware upgrade. Talk to you'r IBM service rep.



HTH /HE

 

[elbourgi]

What about restore.

A backup with a RC=0 does not mean you'll be able to restore it !!

What are your experience with restore from LTO2 backups ?

Good / Bad - Do you restore uge amount of data?

Any input welcome

Thanks

 

[tneedham]

Hi,

Are you labeling the tapes when you put them in the library or are you just reading the barcode?

 

[elbourgi]

always labeling