tape cartridges max mount setting?

[caldwem01]

Is there a way to limit the number of tape volume mounts. To set a max number of times a tape cartirigde can be mounted? I dont see a command/parameter for this. We are concerned about overuse of carts. Is there another practical solution that others are using?

Thank you

 

[nottins]

As fair as I know there is no way to limit the number of times a cartridge is mount. You could make in ineligible for writes by setting its volume status to readonly or its libv status to private. If the volumes are being read a lot for restores, there's nothing you can do. The way TSM works with expiration and reclamation means cartridges are alwys going to be used over and over.

 

[avolchonock]

Tsm Manager

if my memory is correct you have a realy nice REPORT built in the TSM MANAGER tool from IBM

you can see all the mounts per cart for the last year or so i think

you can later use that info combined with an admistrative schedule and a script to set certain overmounted cart to readonly state and later easily track them and replace them with new ones etc..

 

[DanGiles]

I haven't checked this in a while, but I believe that when you check a tape out of the library, you loose that information.

 

[rchoudarapu]

Are you referring to physical mounts? or
Do you want to limit the number of times a cart can be reused as scratch volume?

 

[tblanchard]

Hi,
in the same way : How many mounts does a tape usually support?

I use NetBackup (I started to use this software a few days ago), it has a max mount number which I can set when adding a tape to the media list, for information.

thomas

 

[may]

In TSm there is no nativecommand to do it,

but the "mounts" information are store in the db
you can do a q vol xx f=d
it appear as " Number of Times Mounted: xx"

or more interesting by the select * from volumes where volume_name='xxxx'
==> TIMES_MOUNTED: xx

so with that you are able to creat a script which will verify the amount in the " TIMES_MOUNTED" field and do action wanted on the volume in question....

hope you see what i mean

 

[n9hmg]

In TSm there is no nativecommand to do it,

but the "mounts" information are store in the db
you can do a q vol xx f=d
it appear as " Number of Times Mounted: xx"

or more interesting by the select * from volumes where volume_name='xxxx'
==> TIMES_MOUNTED: xx

so with that you are able to creat a script which will verify the amount in the " TIMES_MOUNTED" field and do action wanted on the volume in question....

hope you see what i mean

But that's fairly useless, when volumes move to scratch and are no longer in the "VOLUMES" table.

$ tsmout q volh |egrep "`tsmout q libv|grep -i scratch |cut -f2`"
02/14/08 12:45:32 STGDELETE LTO TS0381L3
02/27/08 11:15:59 STGDELETE LTO TS0369L3
02/27/08 11:15:59 STGDELETE LTO TS0404L3
02/29/08 11:35:52 STGNEW LTO TS0381L3
03/03/08 12:09:45 STGDELETE LTO TS0366L3
03/03/08 12:09:46 STGDELETE LTO TS0381L3
03/07/08 01:16:05 STGDELETE LTO TS0385L3
03/08/08 22:27:17 STGDELETE LTO TS0408L3
$

ANS8000I Server command: 'select VOLUME_NAME,TIMES_MOUNTED from VOLUMES where VOLUME_NAME='TS0381L3''
ANR2034E SELECT: No match found using this criteria.
ANS8001I Return code 11.

ANS8002I Highest return code was 11.


That field tracks only the number of times the volume is mounted while it's in its current assignment in a storage pool. Times in the past when it's been labeled/relabeled, been a backupset or a db backup or an export - all lost.
HOWEVER: the LTO system does its own health monitoring. For all I know, the on-cart memory keeps track of mounts, distance traveled, etc.. I think it also keeps a map of bad spots.

 

[cheese]

is there some way to get that on-cart info?