Re: QIC Tape 'Survey' -- MIDRANGE-L

Gee, I didn't know anyone was using the 13gb tape.  :-)

  See, now you've learned something ALREADY today!

In an effort to 'Seek first to understand'(1) let me offer this.  There
are some devices that never sold well.

  It is not my understanding that this fits that category. In our experience
it was very popular in the model 600 and 170 space where they seem almost to
be ubiquitous. Many of those machines were sold with 12-30 or so GB of DASD
making this drive 'just right'. Not so expensive, single cartridge 'save 21',
and about the right speed for the processors.

   Was it the 'perfect drive'? (ahem) no. But if cleaned regularly and the
PTFs brought up to date the buggers work and now customers have years of data
on those tapes as well as a good rotation. In many cases they do not yet need
a system upgrade.

Granted, in many cases, we just beat these programmers into submission.

  A valid option in this case ;-)  In fact I wonder just how difficult it
could be for IBM to maintain the drivers for this drive. How much different
could they be than those for the 16/32G drive? Or virtually any other QIC
drive for that matter.

I)  See if a newer tape drive would be a good fit anyway.

  25GB Drive: $5000, withdrawn. At least media compatible.
  30GB Drive: $4000, appears to be available only for 270, 820 and up. WIll
use the older cartridges with a "*" (i.e. degraded performance and reliability)
  50GB Drive: $6000, appears to be available only for 270, 820 and up. WIll
only read the older cartridges with a "*" (see above)

 A)  Are you seeing the lousy data we see on numerous 25gb tape drives, on
numerous iSeries?
 B)  Would a faster tape drive minimize your downtime due to backup?
 C)  Would a higher capacity tape drive reduce the number of cartridges
needed?

   No,No,No.

II)  Stay on a lower release.  Yuck!

   Agreed!

III)  Submit a DCR, explain your business case as to why you need this.
And pray for the best.
http://faq.midrange.com/data/cache/189.html

  This last worked when?

IV)  Contact IBM services and offer them a chunk of that $10g to support
that tape drive.

  Not likely!

  - Larry

--
Larry Bolhuis           | IBM Certified Solutions Expert
Vice President          |     iSeries Technology V5 R1
Arbor Solutions, Inc.   |     e-business for AS/400 V4 R2
(616) 451-2500          | IBM Certified Specialist  AS/400
(616) 451-2571 -fax     |     RPG IV Developer
lbolhuis@arbsol.com     |     System Administrator for OS/400 V4 R4
www.arbsol.com          |     Professional Network Administrator
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