I do have a 5.25" FDD but another issue is also do you have the cable for
it - the connectors for 5.25" FDDs and 3.5" FDDs are different and does
your software (BIOS, drivers, etc.) support it.
1. Physical connectivity - It took me 5 months (not all the time :-) to
find SCSI interposer allowing me to connect 8-bit Fast SCSI-II tape drive
to AHA-29160. On the old AHA-2940UW I had both 8-bit and 16-bit connectors.
In Ultra2 SCSI there is still definition for narrow devices. In Ultra3 SCSI
(Ultra160 is a subset), Ultra320 and Ultra640 there is no place for such
devices. And right now I cannot connect to any of my systems SCSI-I device
due to lack of cables or controllers.
2. Software compatibility - Archived data cannot be put in a backupset and
restored without a server. So for archive retrival we will be forced to
carry those archives from media to media every time upgrade was made.
Otherwise we need device to read old media; controllers, cables and machine
to connect the device; TSM server (at same version or *GUARANTEED*
compatible with it) able to restore old DB and read old volumes; network
hardware and transport protocols to carry the data (if your very-very old
server is still somewhere in the basement but has only 4 MB Token-Ring or
Arcnet  or Micro-Channel machine with 10Base-2 Ethernet in year 2020 !?!);
compatible client.
Maybe more can be added to this.

Zlatko Krastev
IT Consultant





Bill Mansfield <WMansfield AT SOLUTIONTECHNOLOGY DOT COM> on 23.10.2001 00:45:06
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
cc:

Subject:        Re: Lifespan of media

I can't find a machine in our shop to read a 5.25" floppy.  The lifetime of
the media sometimes exceeds the lifetime of the technology.  This is a
particular problem with very long term archival.  Even if the drive can
read the tape, the software needs to be able to interpret it, which TSM has
done pretty well with so far (but it is a proprietary format).

On another topic:  does anybody cycle their TSM tapes?  I suspect that the
"base" backup tapes for the operating system and other unchanging files
tend to not get reclaimed very often.  I know that I could do a query on
the volume for last write date and do a move data from the old tape, but
I'm curious to know if anyone out there does this.  Veritas and the rest
automatically cycle their tapes via their "expiration" process.

_____________________________
William Mansfield
Senior Consultant
Solution Technology, Inc




                    "Joshua S.
                    Bassi"               To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
                    <jbassi@IHWY.        cc:
                    COM>                 Subject:     Re: Lifespan of media
                    Sent by:
                    "ADSM: Dist
                    Stor Manager"
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                    10/22/2001
                    04:16 PM
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                    respond to
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                    Stor Manager"






DLT is 3 years
3590 is 10 years
WORM is 100 years
CD - don't know, but a lot I would guess


--
Joshua S. Bassi
Joshua S. Bassi
Independent IT Consultant
IBM Certified - AIX/HACMP, SAN, Shark
Tivoli Certified Consultant- ADSM/TSM
Cell (408)&(831) 332-4006
jbassi AT ihwy DOT com