RE: Storage Tek T9840C Tape Drive - it has Fiber, I want it in a Fabric

["Musselman, Paul" <pmusselman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Larry--

Thanks for the tips.  We went burrowing through the doc in the link, and I think our drive isn't smart enough without an IOP card.  It's been out of service for 4 or 5 years.

Our new system is an 8205-E6C/EPC8 with a V7000 SAN.  I'm pretty sure all the cards in the iSeries are IOPless.  There are no fiber connections currently un-used.  

A direct connection would possible-- I don't know if a used drive that can work IOPless  is cheaper than a fiber card or not.

Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.
.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DrFranken
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2013 10:40 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Storage Tek T9840C Tape Drive - it has Fiber, I want it in a Fabric

One common mistake I have made is to create the new configuration for 
the switch but then forget to apply it. It doesn't sound like you've 
missed that but just tossing that one out there.

The limit for the number of drives that show up on one port I believe is 
8 so you should be good there by adding this fifth drive.

I'm not familiar with the Storage Tek drive but if it reports as 3590 it 
should work just fine. BUT how new of a device? This techdoc indicates 
it must be a 3592 to be connected to an IOPLess Fiber card.

http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/FQ125731

Do you have an iopLess card or are you using IOPs in this configuration?

While I like the concept of simply adding this drive to the fabric if 
you only need to do a retrieve does it make sense to cable the drive 
direct to the partition for this process??


         - Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com
www.iInTheCloud.com

On 9/14/2013 10:27 PM, Musselman, Paul wrote:
> I'm boldly delving into the mysteries of Brocade Switches.  We have Zones configured to cross-link 3 LPARs to 4 tape drives.  This configuration works fine.  The drives are all LTO-4, one in a TS3100 (3573-020) and three in a TS3310 (3576-05B) MLB.
>
> We need to retrieve some old data from the archives.  We have a Storage Tek T9840C tape drive with fiber ports.  I think I've successfully added the 'new' drive to the Zones for the LPARs (just a 'simple' addition...).  The GUI interface to the switch shows the new drive as "03590E1A-F27E" with the port light green;  the Brocade SAN health report shows the new drive as "3590 IBM Tape Drive (Storage Tek Library)," pointing to the zones for each of the LPARs.  As far as I can tell.
>
> The new drive doesn't show up in the iSeries LPARs.  I've rebooted one, but no changes.  SST doesn't show any devices in error, and a configuration list doesn't show the new drive.  Looking for TAP* devices only shows the existing MLBs and drives.
>
> My question is-does the T9840C drive require a separate controller, or does the drive have enough intelligence to stand alone?
>
> What else can I check?  Any suggestions will be cheerfully tried!
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> Paul E Musselman
> PaulMmn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx