Automatic Inventory when opening library door

[thedeal]

I am using Brightstor 9 build 2040 on W2K server. We are using a 30-slot tape library. Ever since we installed the latest patches for Arcseve, our library inventories every slot every time you open the door to insert or remove a tape? This is not happening on our other tape library's that have not been patched. Any suggestions?

 

[davidmichel]

Try a dis-mount prior to opening the door, and then a mount after the tapes have been changed.

The goal is that the inventory will stay current each time you change tapes.

 

[mawilson]

Try stopping the tape engine before you open the door. That has worked for me so far. My particular library will still do its startup motion when I shut the door, but I wait until that is finished before I start the engine again and Arcserve igonres it.

 

[thedeal]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. The mount/dis-mount did not work for me but I will try stopping the tape engine to see if I have better luck.

 

[Cyklops]

The reinventory of tapes is normal behaviour with ARCserve when you open and close a library door.
If you're using a 30 slots library, does it have one or more mail slots ?? Maybe you can use the import/export functionality to remove or insert tapes (as long as you need only one or more tapes - depending on the mail slot capacity) easier

regards

 

[thedeal]

The type of library that we have does not have a mail slot and these don't normally read every time everytime the door is opened. We currently have 6 of these and two of them started doing this after an ArcServe Patch. I have been working with ArcServe and the drive vendor but so far no luck.

 

[gatoradeguy]

We are also having this problem. Everytime we open our library door and close it, arcserve does a full inventory of all our slots. This is an extreme pain as we have to wait for 30 slots to inventory before we can start a restore. Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[SharedLibrary]

What model of library are you using?

 

[gatoradeguy]

I am using a Cybernetics 30 slot library with a sony tape drive; it takes AIT3 tapes. This problem actually also happens with our 15 slot library in another office, but if I can fix just the 30 I'll be happy. Inventorying 30 tapes is a bit too much to wait when immediate restores are needed.

 

[davidmichel]

Why would you open the door if not to change tapes?

Tapes changed without an update to the Tape Engine is a bad thing. Tapes will get moved incorrectly, new tapes will be unknown, ect.

door is opened
library reports event to the application
Tape Engine does the inventory
Tape Engine now has current enventory
All is right in the world

When barcodes are used it is a non issue since it does not have to load all the tapes. (See faq for details)

When the Tape Eninge starts it also does an inventory, unless you set it for quick init in the Device Configuration setup. But be warned you then need to do the dismount mount for any tapes that are changed.

 

[gatoradeguy]

We don't open the door unless we change tapes. We have 100's of tapes. Obviously we'll have to change out tapes in a 30 slot library when we have to do restores. This is the situation, you eject a tape through arcserve,you put in a tape or take one out, you close the door. The library does a full inventory of all tapes in the library even if you just change one. Has anyone experienced this before?

 

[davidmichel]

It's the library. The library signals the application when ever the door has been opened. This is the reason why they started adding mail or import/export slots to libraries.

A 100 slots, doesn't that library support barcodes???
With barcodes it should be a fast operation. See How Are Barcodes Used? faq478-3963 for details.