That is the way I do it too. Take all drives offline (or atleast the
ones that are not currently in use) and then do something like a "move
data" to get it exercised.

Ben 

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Kelly Lipp
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 3:15 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Is there a simple way to test a tape drive?

Well, one quick thought I had was to update all the drives you don't
want test to online=no.  Checkout one scratch tape with remove=no and
then do a label libvol search=yes overwrite=yes.  That way it will write
a label on the tape and then read that label.

Oh, be sure to update all the drives back to online=yes... 


Kelly J. Lipp
VP Manufacturing & CTO
STORServer, Inc.
485-B Elkton Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
719-266-8777
lipp AT storserver DOT com

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Richard Rhodes
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 1:23 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] Is there a simple way to test a tape drive?

Sometimes I want to have TSM test out a tape drive.
Something like . . .
  - pick a drive
  - pick a tape
  - have tsm mount the tape and read the label (or something)
  - tell me this succeeded or not

Like yesterday . . . IBM repaired a tape drive.  After fixing it, IBM
tells us it's fixed.  We put the drive online . . .and wait for TSM to
use it.  For this particular drive, it was several hours before TSM used
it.

We also get this after an upgrade, or adding a new drive.  To get TSm to
used any drive, let alone a particular drive, requires starting a
migration, update stgpool, backup to tape, etc.  All are large
processes.

Is there a simple way to get TSM to exercise a particular tape drive?
Or, what do you do in these situations?

We have 3590 drives in 3494 libraries, and 3592 drives in 3584
libraries.

Thanks

Rick


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