Re: Long SAVSYS

Jim,

I don't throw the tapes away right away. We put them off to the side. If
we start noticing that we are getting a bunch of errors we are often able
to track it down to just one drive throwing the errors. Once we've
replaced that drive, and ran an INZTAP with a CLEAR(*YES) we're able to
put the tape back into circulation and it no longer has any errors. In
all the years of LTO3 I think we really only have had one tape go bad. We
have replaced a few drives.
In summary, I'd retain the bad ones long enough to determine if there's a
pattern in the drive.

Since BRMS we rarely INZTAP. Basically we reserve it for a backup that's
really gone bad and we want to use that same tape right now and not wait
for expiration (since the reserve tapes are in another city...).
CLEAR(*YES) is reserved for two purposes. Verifying a tape after a drive
replacement, and for when we go to LTO4.


Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1
Group Dekko
Dept 1600
Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





From: Jim Oberholtzer <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Date: 04/23/2013 07:29 AM
Subject: Re: Long SAVSYS
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx



Or re-initialize the tape every time it's used. That resets the counter
to make it almost worthless. I never reset the statistics so I can see
if the tape is failing in any way over its lifetime. Also keep track of
when you clean the tape drive and how that affects read/write errors.
When you start seeing write errors to the tape, time for a new tape.
Tape, cheap. Lost system that is not recoverable because the tape was
failing, bankruptcy.....

Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


On 4/23/2013 6:12 AM, rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Have you tried PRTERRLOG TYPE(*VOLSTAT) VOLTYPE(3590)? Yeah, I know

3590

sounds silly for LTO drives, but it works. If you have a bunch of

errors

it may be time to retire that tape. Prompt the command. You may want

to

reset the statistics every so often. Since you are a brms shop it will
make more sense to you as you will not have multiple tapes with the same
volume id (like IBMIRD or some silly thing carried over from S/36
diskette).

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