ADSM-L

Re: 3584 tape questions

2002-09-19 11:38:17
Subject: Re: 3584 tape questions
From: Orville Lantto <orville.lantto AT DATATREND DOT COM>
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 10:34:07 -0500
>From the IBM Ultrium Setup and Operators Guide

"The IBM LTO Ultrium Data Cartridge includes a Linear Tape-Open Cartridge
Memory (LTO-CM) chip, which contains information about the cartridge and 
the tape
(such as the name of the manufacturer that created the tape), as well as 
statistical
information about the cartridge's use. Whenever you unload a tape 
cartridge, the
tape library writes any pertinent information to the cartridge memory."

Maybe the volser is in the chip.


Orville L. Lantto
Datatrend Technologies, Inc.  (http://www.datatrend.com)
IBM Premier Business Partner
121 Cheshire Lane, Suite 700
Minnetonka, MN 55305
Email: Orville.Lantto AT datatrend DOT com





Dan Foster <dsf AT GBLX DOT NET>
Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
09/18/2002 09:25 PM
Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"

 
        To:     ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
        cc: 
        Subject:        3584 tape questions


I've finally got the new 3584 library up and worked through all hardware
and TSM issues, and just finished with the first round of successful 
tests.
Looks sharp! Currently tuning the setup (disk, memory, network, TSM, etc).

Environment: AIX 4.3.3 ML10, pSeries 660-6H1, TSM 4.2 (5.1 next week)
to 4.2.2.12, SCSI attachment to host, 3584-L32 and 3584-D32 frames.

Two questions about 3584 tapes --

        1. Is it normal for it to take 45 seconds to read/verify the
           label on the tape? The tape load itself is pretty quick, but
           takes forever-and-an-half to read/verify the label.

        2. There's two label sources -- one is the barcode scanner, which
           works great and *very* quick, and it seems the other label
           source is on the tape somewhere.

           Where exactly on the tape is the label preserved, other than 
the
           volser bar code label? Is it in the LTO-CM area of the tape? Or
           is it on the first part of the tape, or something?

           I'm curious about this because the implications is that if I
           do destructive read-write tests with tapes involving overwrite,
           I might potentially overwrite the label, and have to relabel 
it?

           The documentation suggests that 'LABEL LIBVOL' for a 3584 would
           update label in the LTO-CM area of the tape cartridge, but it
           isn't real definite or clear on that point.

-Dan

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