RE: 3590 vs. BCC 9171-A22

     It may be a bit late with this response, however in the almost 18 
     years I have been dealing with OEM vs. IBM tape drives, I have never 
     been burned by IBM tape drives (yes they go down occasionally, but 
     they always come back with IBM maintenance) and almost always have had 
     major problems with OEM drives.  The biggest risk is you don't find 
     out your screwed until its too late, in the middle of a business 
     recovery situation.  Remember the Chicago river flooding the basements 
     of buildings a few years ago.  17 companies were involved from a data 
     center standpoint.  3 of them were my clients, all with hot site 
     recovery contracts from IBM.  One had OEM drives on its AS/400.  Guess 
     which one I could not recover with a simple reload?  I managed to get 
     them recovered, almost 90 hours after the other two.  (by the way of 
     the 17 companies 13 of them were out of business 6 months later.  None 
     of the 13 had a recovery plan)
     
     The most important reason you don't want OEM tape drives is microcode. 
     An OEM vendor simply cannot keep up with current microcode levels.  
     The tape drive and the controller card have to work together without 
     dropping a bit, that requires very solid microcode.  As Larry pointed 
     out, working like, but not configuring like, implies a microcode 
     difference and you will eventually get burned.  The price may be good 
     now, but this is a pay me now, or get fired later situation.
     
     Just my opinion, backed up by experience,
     and does not represent my employer
     Jim Oberholtzer

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