RE: Ultrium 4 Tape Initialization

John,

You are exactly right in what should be done for tape management.
You would be surprised how many places do what your shop does.

Pete

Pete Massiello
iTech Solutions
http://www.itechsol.com

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-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of jmmckee
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 1:30 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Ultrium 4 Tape Initialization

Really annoys me that procedure where I work is to initialize the tape every
night. Old habits die painfully hard. I have suggested that the expiration
date be changed from *PERM to a value more in line with the tape rotation.
That date could be generated from a CL program.

My biggest issue with continual tape initialization, beyond excessive wear
and tear (which is a big issue), is that the wrong tape could be pulled and
the data destroyed.

I have also complained that tapes should have unique volume numbers, not
stupid things like DAILY. But, nobody seems to care. I even showed them
PRTERRLOG output. And people wonder why things fail sometimes.

I worked in a bank thirty years ago that used 9 track tape. Only time tapes
were initialized was when the BOT marker was replaced.

John McKee


-----Original message-----
From: Simon Coulter shc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 19:03:14 -0500
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Ultrium 4 Tape Initialization

On 15/05/2010, at 5:35 AM, rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

But on a nightly
basis you do not need to run CLEAR(*YES). You will still have all the
tape space available if you run CLEAR(*NO). Basically it wiped out
the
header and goes from there. Trust me, it just works. We've been
doing
this for decades.

But why, on a nightly basis, do so many of you run INZTAP anyway? Just
start the save at sequence 1 and let the save overwrite the previous
data. By constantly running INZTAP you:
a) wear out the start of the tape :)
and
b) mess up the read/write error statistics for the tape.

Sure, initialise and clear a tape prior to disposing of it but
otherwise a tape should be initialised once and just reused.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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