LTO2 firmware issues

[matthias]

We have problems using IBM LTO2 FC.

Some tape POS request take up to 90 min. (seen in STA-Trace), normal is something more than a minute.

I heard from IBM that there are some problems with firmware, but StorageTek is not yet able to supply newer microcode than 38D0 which we have in the moment.

Is there somebody who could supply more info ?



Matthias

 

[stuartc]

Although not public yet there is indeed a locate issue with the 38D0 microcode. I just went through this on my 3584. Even though we got the code updated to 45DH we still had to move the data off the offending volumes. Once a locate is lost you have to rebuild it and the fastest way I found was to move the data back to the disk pool.

Good luck on getting the update. It should be out for other vendors soon.

 

[acr]

In order to confirm that you "really" have a locate issue on an LTO2 drive, get a tape that you know for sure has a problem, then put it into a drive. There are various ways of doing this so I won't go through how to actually get the tape into a drive.



When it's in the drive, issue this command:



tapeutil -f /dev/rmtX seod



where /dev/rmtX is the drive you have the tape in. Note that this may be a different format based on OS.



If this command takes a few minutes to run, this tape doesn't have a problem. If it takes a few hours, you need to call hardware support for your drives and notify them. This will probably get them to give you a later firmware level.



I'm not sure how STK is handling this, they usually have their own test on firmware I believe.

 

[matthias]

I think this is a good method of testing if you are in doubt of certain tapes.

We were going a harder way by looking at TSM-STA traces to verify that long positioning is our problem and is definitely a severe problem for six month already.

What to do now with this knowledge ?

There is no solution in sight, no firmware upgrade, no procedure to help.

Who else is suffering and :

Where is the solution ?



Matthias

 

[matthias]

We are still not through with our LTO2 problem.

Reading from LTO2 takes up to 90 minutes just for positioning on an full tape for the last file. Positioning goes 32 times forward and 32 times backward just to find the file. The files on the beginning of the tape come quickly, as later they come on the tape, the longer you have to wait.

This seems to be a bug in firmware 38D0, new firmware 45DH is out which should repair ( ? ) since 4 weeks,

but N o t y e t for our STK robot L700. Shame on STK , they are still testing, but ...... why didnt they get this bug on 38D0 if they have this month or two of testing ?????