Anyone want to take a stab at explaining "Work with Lifetime Statistics" in Service Tools ?

Hi Folks,

We had the backup of a single library go WAY longer than normal. Still
trying to ascertain what happened.

The library did NOT radically increase in size.

There MIGHT have been some big jobs running against it (still checking
that).

There might be a problem with the tape cartridge.

I am leaning to the tape cartridge at this point because the same job ran
fine the night before and the night after this SLOW run...

We are using the IBM 9427-210 Cartridge Tape 8MM unit which isn't real
fast - I came from a shop where we had a 3590 - I miss my 3590 ;-(

Anyway, here is a sampling of the stats:

                         Work with Lifetime Statistics

Removable media . . . . . . :   8-mm cartridge tape

Type options, press Enter.
4=Delete entry   6=Print entry

      Volume    --Temporary Error---   --Perm Error--   -------K
Bytes--------
Opt   ID             Read      Write    Read    Write         Read
Written
      ********         87          0       0        0            7
7
      0004#2            8          0       0        0            6
6
      0005#2            1          0       0        0            3
3
    > 000099           56     522380       0        0            7
6364824
    > 000045           20      96584       0        0            8
1431955
      000032          220       5834       0        0          176
90783
    > 000041           19     126159       0        0            5
2117392
    > 000044            2      87053       0        0            5
1548572

000099 is the tape in question in this case. I know that the > means "Media
may exceed replacement criteria". What I am most interested in is
understanding the Temporary and Perm Errors. Obviously the Write errors
under Temporary Errors is very high. Does this indicate a serious problem
with the tape surface ? If if does, from my recording days and I can
understand it bouncing back and forth trying to find a good spot, etc. and
this REALLY adding to the save time.

Am I in the ballpark on this ?

Thanks !

Chuck