Re: FW: iSeries DASD - Note From Buell

Tom

Get IBM to swap the remaining DASD out...
They have for other customers (inc us in the UK!!)


Barry T




"Law, Tom" <actlaw@nmhg.com>@midrange.com on 25/07/2001 14:52:39

Please respond to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com

Sent by:  owner-midrange-l@midrange.com


To:   MIDRANGE-L <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
cc:
Subject:  FW: iSeries DASD - Note From Buell


I sent the following note to our management.  We happen to be one of the
small percentage users of the drives in question


> There have been many articles on failing DASD on iseries boxes using 8g
> and 18g 10k disk drives.  The following note from Buell Duncan at IBM
> reiterates this fact.
>
> We installed the 820 on 1/6/01.  Since that time we have replaced 5 disk
> drives.  One of which was a replacement drive.
>
> Drives were replaced on 1/29/01, 2/7/01, 6/15/01, 7/5/01, 7/21/01.
>
> We are not even production on this machine as of yet.  Except for the
> restores I do prior to a test, there has been very little disk activity.
>
> I am concerned with the failure rate of these 8g drives.  At this point
in
> time I am not comfortable with our drive configuration.  I think we need
> to have IBM address the issue of possibly replacing the remaining drives
> that have not failed as of yet.  (feel the pessimism?)
>
> Buell made a statement, (which is in red), that I feel we need to follow
> up on.
>
> Tom
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Haase, Justin C. [mailto:Justin.Haase@Kingland.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 7:21 AM
> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject: iSeries DASD - Note From Buell
>
>
> Thought you all would find this interesting.
>
> <snip>
> Recently, there have been some industry press articles about iSeries DASD
> reliability and quality problems.  As you know, we are taking significant
> actions to address these issues that have affected a very small
percentage
> of our customers.
>
> While the vast majority of the iSeries 8 and 18 GB disk drives are not
> experiencing problems, some customers are seeing failures at a higher
rate
> than is acceptable.  We have been working with these customers to ensure
> they are taking the appropriate steps to limit their exposure to any data
> loss failures, and in the meantime we have been vigorously attacking the
> problem as a joint effort of our system and disk drive development labs.
>
> We have made measurable improvements to the 8 and 18 GB 10Krpm disk
drives
> through a series of incremental changes to the system, the drives, and
the
> manufacturing and shipping processes.  All aspects of the issue have been
> under examination, and changes have been implemented to address supplier
> contamination problems, resolve drive resonance issues, tighten
tolerances
> with new drive components, and fix drive microcode via PTFs.  We've also
> delivered system PTFs to resolve SCSI bus contention issues and further
> reduce the likelihood of multiple drive failures in RAID arrays.  We've
> made significant improvements in the quality of the drives that we're
> shipping today, and we are actively working to qualify additional drive
> models to use in the few situations where the before mentioned actions
> don't satisfactorily provide a solution to the customer.  We encourage
any
> customer that is not satisfied with their drive performance to work with
> their service and sales teams to ensure that the appropriate actions are
> taken.
>
> The iSeries system has a strong reputation for being one of the most
> reliable systems in the industry.  Its architecture, the integration, and
> the capabilities it provides for data protection result in a very robust
> system which our customers rely on heavily.  IBM understands that, and
you
> can be sure that when a reliability issue hits any of our customers, we
> are
> relentless at getting it addressed.
>
>
> Buell
>
> Buell Duncan, General Manager, Mid-Market Servers, Server Group
> Rt. 100 , OB4/2N5
> Somers, NY 10589
> 914-766-4400 or 8-826-4400 -- FAX:  8-926-4878
> Internet:  bgduncan@us.ibm.com
> </snip>
>
> Justin C. Haase
> Midrange Systems Engineer - Kingland Systems Corporation
> IBM Certified AS/400 Systems Administrator
> phone - 641.355.1035
> e-mail - justin.haase@kingland.com
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