I, too, would advise caution if/when you ultimately pursue this.
We were faced with the same issue when our 3494 rapidly filled
up. Management balked at an additional frame so we began to
remove tapes. It was somewhat more confusing b/c we had two ADSM
servers sharing the 3494, and when we had a tape drive go bad
(the part that reads the cartridge type failed) which rejected
incoming tapes, in the resulting confusion tapes with data from
one server were checked into the library as scratch tapes for the
other server. BAD JUJU!

Having said that, we are now successfully storing tapes in and
outside of the library. You'll have to work out the best method
to choose candidates for outside storage. The last thing you want
to do is spend half your day making trips to the data center to
insert tapes into your "automated" tape library.

 -- Tom

Thomas A. La Porte
DreamWorks Feature Animation
tlaporte AT anim.dreamworks DOT com

On Tue, 22 Jun 1999, James SPORER wrote:

>     Pat,
>     I suggest you test this to make sure you won't have any problems.  We
>     are running an mvs adsm server and thought this would be a good idea
>     since we were running out of slots in our atl.  We ejected tapes that
>     hadn't been mounted recently.  We thought we would get prompted to put
>     the tapes back in the atl if adsm wanted to use them.  I don't
>     remember exactly what happened but we never got a prompt to put the
>     tapes back in the atl. I reported the problem to IBM and was told that
>     was the only way they could do it.  When I pointed out that dfhsm
>     prompted us to put tapes back in the atl they said they would look
>     into it.  In the meantime we got another frame for our atl and didn't
>     pursue a resolution.
>     Jim Sporer
>     UW madison
>
>
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator 
>_________________________________
>Subject: tape library management
>Author:  "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>  at IPNET
>Date:    6/22/99 9:38 AM
>
>
>I've finally reached the point where my on-site tapes won't all fit in the
>tape library, so I'm going to have to start shuffling the older ones out.
>I'm already running DRM for the copypool and dbbackup tapes...  Any hints or
>handy scripts?
>
>Thanks.
>
>Pat Wilson
>paw AT dartmouth DOT edu
>