RE: 3590 tape

We had almost weekly problems with a tape drive (I shouldn't say "a" drive, since it was replaced several times), and IBM finally replaced card, cable, drive then said only ever use IBM tapes. I don't think the tapes were really the problem, but that's the reason we had IBM tapes and not others for quite a while.
--
Sean Porterfield

-----Original Message-----
From: John McKee
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 16:25
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: 3590 tape

Thanks guys. I was asked if there was a compelling reason to pick from IBM or Imation for replacement of old tapes. I had thought I had read on here at some point that a difference was encountered - might have been with LT series tapes - if I didn't imagine it.

Thanks, again

John McKee

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Jim Oberholtzer <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John,

Like Paul, most of my customers buy what they can get at a reasonable
price. I just bought Maxell (LTO3) from CDW because they were cheaper
per tape. I don't think there is much difference. Having checked
media statistics for several customers using all different brands of
LTO tape I have not seen a pattern of errors for any one tape brand.
There is a direct correlation between the age of the tape and errors (
errors tend to start about about 200 uses and increase fast by the
way) but none by brand.

Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


On 1/30/2012 1:39 PM, Musselman, Paul wrote:

John--

We don't use 3590 tapes, but do use LTO4. The brands we have in the computer room at the moment are:
IBM
TDK
Tandberg
Sony
Quantum
Except for the silk-screened brand-name on the outside they could be quintuplets!

We have some iMation 9840 tapes floating around. I think the only reason we don't have iMation LTO4 tapes is because our supplier gets a better price on the other brands.

Few, if any, of the tapes (of any major brand) have given us issues.

The label on the iMation tapes says "BlackWatch." That was a brand the 3M company used... from their web site: "The business that became Imation was born of 3M innovation at the dawn of the computer age in the 1950s."

Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John McKee
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 11:44 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: 3590 tape

Is there a preference between using IBM or Imation 3590 tapes?

John McKee

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