RE: Total Replace of Drives

["Andy Nolen-Parkhouse" <aparkhouse@xxxxxxxxx>]

Bill,

The Option 21 option will not preserve your spool files, so if that is a
requirement, then you should not pursue that tack.

You say that you are replacing all of your disk drives.  Are you
replacing your existing drives with higher-capacity drives in the same
slots?  The documentation for the SAVSTG command implies that you would
be able to restore under those circumstances.  I say 'implies' because
there seems to be some thoughts that only an exact duplication of the
original drive configuration will suffice.  Below is a quote from the
V5R1 Backup and Recovery manual:

"The disk configuration of the restoring system must be the same as the
disk configuration of the saving system. There must be at least as many
disk units on the restoring system as there were on the saving system.
Each disk unit capacity on the restoring system must be equal to or
greater than the capacity of the disk unit on the saving system. Serial
numbers and physical addresses do not have to be the same. All disk units
that were saved are required for the restore operation."

Another alternative, if you are replacing existing drives with higher
capacity drives, would be to replace half the drives, pump the data to
your new drives, and then replace the remainder.  This would not be for
the faint-hearted and is more complex than I've stated.

How closely will your future configuration match you current
configuration?  SAVSTG is probably your best bet unless your drive
configurations do not match.  (Then again, some folks would welcome the
opportunity to blow away their accumulated spool files :))

Regards,
Andy Nolen-Parkhouse

> bounces@midrange.com] On Behalf Of Bill
> Subject: Total Replace of Drives
> 
> This weekend I plan to be replacing all of my disk drives.  I
> originally was going to do an Option 21 (twice), but I am now
> questioning whether this would end up restoring everything back.  Can I
> completely restore a system - including spool files and other niche
> entities - from this tape -or- is the proper method SavStg?
> 
> I've been scanning through the Backup and Restore manual and I'm
> getting lost fast.  Does this manual or another one address this
> process?  (or can someone give me the steps to accomplish it).
> 
> Bill