L180/ L700 libraries

[mletendre]

Hello all, I have just joined and did some searching and have a few questions about Sun/STK libraries.

We have 2 L700 libraries and a HP version that is the same thing along with 3 L180 libraries. I have a copy of the firmware for the STK libraries for level 3.12, which to the best of my knowledge should be good all the way up to LTO3 drives.

We do not use these libraries in the typical way as we are using a proprietary software to write over 100% of the tape keeping track of all the errors it encounters along the way, but I do not think that will affect my questions too much.

First of all is it possible get a copy of the L series admin tool? The HP library actually says "web enabled" on it, though it does not have a dongle / personality module. Does anyone know where I can obtain these and how useful they are?

also as a previous poster stated when I put LTO 3 drives in the library with a firmware of 3.11 the library showed it as a LTO 1 drive (I used a sled that used to be on an LTO 2 drive, not sure if that makes a difference) The software would not run the job stating no media was available for that drive (the LTOs all had L3 indicators on the labels). Is it a firmware issue on the drives themselves?

Does anyone know where I can pick up inexpensive sleds and bezels for LTOs and 9840/9940 drives? I have been using 9840 sleds for the 9940 drives since I can pick up the drives so cheap, and they seem to work alright, though I do get a lot of load errors but I figure that is probably from the drive or tapes being older and malfunctioning, either way I do get annoyed when I see the "not functional" on the LCD, usually just have to pause the other jobs open up the library, eject and its ok.

Finally we had some LTO 3 drives that we had purchased and they would not work in the HP version and the vendor stated that there was a personality in the drive that is set to work with STK and not HP, is that something we can change?

 

[STKman]

I think I can answer the Admin Tool part.

The admin tool is built into the firmware. All you have to do is type the L700 IP address into the web browser and the application will display. It's OK, expecially the FSC code tool which gives the full text of problems rather than a one-word summary. Your PC needs to have Java runtime installed. It seems to be free on the HP L700 version, but requires the dongle for the Sun version. The dongles are available from Sun for an unreasonable ammount of money. A lot of what you can do is possible from the CLI serial port anyway - for free (it's just below the dongle socket).

As for the LTO3's not working in the HP library, they need HP drive firmware. I hope they are HP made LTO's as I'm sure that's all HP support. The HP BizSupport site only has LTO1 firmware for download, but then they did stop marketing the L700 years ago. You could pop the question on the HP Business Support Forums and see if any 10/700 users (HP's L700 model name)use LTO3.

 

[mletendre]

Thank you for your response!

yes, they are HP made LTO 3's and I upgraded the firmware using HP Tape Tools. I talked to the vendor we used to purchase these and he said that within the firmware there is a personality bit that dictates if it will work with the STK or HP version (strange to me how they wouldn't work with both, since it is essentially the same library with a different color).

 

[STKman]

What dictates what the library will work with is the firmware on the library controller card. I suppose you could "convert" it to an STK library by fitting an STK version MPC card, or flashing it with STK code.

 

[mletendre]

I think he was referring to the firmware on the drives themselves, the firmware on the drives had a personality aspect to dictate if it will work with a particular library. I am not sure if he was just brushing me off trying to come upw ith a simple solution or not.

 

[STKman]

The vendor is quite correct is what he says.

Once a personality has been burnt to a drive it is impossible (for an end user) to change that personality to another vendor as it wont accept firmware of another personality.

So what I meant to say was, if you are desparate to use the STK flavour LTO3's in the HP library then it is possible change the HP library into an STK library simply by replacing the MPC controller card. They are quite cheap now. The part number is 308390514. Specify you want something like 3.15 code pre-installed.