Re: Long SAVSYS

[Jim Oberholtzer <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob,

All true!  However most folks don't have the time to mange their tapes 
that way.  While your experience with tapes is good there are folks that 
have bad tapes and don't find out until a recovery test.  Fortunately a 
recovery test is a learning experience so they just get new tapes.

Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


On 4/23/2013 6:41 AM, rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Jim,
>
> I don't throw the tapes away right away.  We put them off to the side.  If
> we start noticing that we are getting a bunch of errors we are often able
> to track it down to just one drive throwing the errors.  Once we've
> replaced that drive, and ran an INZTAP with a CLEAR(*YES) we're able to
> put the tape back into circulation and it no longer has any errors.  In
> all the years of LTO3 I think we really only have had one tape go bad.  We
> have replaced a few drives.
> In summary, I'd retain the bad ones long enough to determine if there's a
> pattern in the drive.
>
> Since BRMS we rarely INZTAP.  Basically we reserve it for a backup that's
> really gone bad and we want to use that same tape right now and not wait
> for expiration (since the reserve tapes are in another city...).
> CLEAR(*YES) is reserved for two purposes.  Verifying a tape after a drive
> replacement, and for when we go to LTO4.
>
>
> Rob Berendt
> -- IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 
> 1600 Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive Garrett, IN 46738 Ship to: Dock 108 
> 6928N 400E Kendallville, IN 46755 http://www.dekko.com From: Jim 
> Oberholtzer <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: Midrange Systems 
> Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Date: 04/23/2013 07:29 
> AM Subject: Re: Long SAVSYS Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx 
> Or re-initialize the tape every time it's used. That resets the 
> counter to make it almost worthless. I never reset the statistics so I 
> can see if the tape is failing in any way over its lifetime. Also keep 
> track of when you clean the tape drive and how that affects read/write 
> errors. When you start seeing write errors to the tape, time for a new 
> tape. Tape, cheap. Lost system that is not recoverable because the 
> tape was failing, bankruptcy..... Jim Oberholtzer Chief Technical 
> Architect Agile Technology Architects On 4/23/2013 6:12 AM, 
> rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > >  Have you tried PRTERRLOG TYPE(*VOLSTAT) VOLTYPE(3590)?  Yeah, I know
> 3590
> > >  sounds silly for LTO drives, but it works.  If you have a bunch of
> errors
> > >  it may be time to retire that tape.  Prompt the command.  You may want
> to
> > >  reset the statistics every so often.  Since you are a brms shop it will
> > >  make more sense to you as you will not have multiple tapes with the same
> > >  volume id (like IBMIRD or some silly thing carried over from S/36
> > >  diskette).
> --