I have read JC64's thread and saw simularities to issues I am seeing. I am wondering if anyone has found a way to get a reasonable level of reliablity out of SDLT. This is going to be long winded, but here is a high level overview of where I am and how I got here.
Our company needed a new file server and a new mail server, and data storage needs were growing. So we built two Proliant based system, each with a single Compaq branded SDLT 1 Drive. These are W2K Servers using ArcServe 2000.
We chose SDLT because of backward compatability, capacity, and speed.
We bought enough new media to get us through the first nine months, with the assumption that after six months passed we would beging to recycle media per out media retention policy. All was going fairly well, I would have the occasional new tape fail (roughly 1 in 10), and more often then I thought would be normal for a new tape, but it was livable.
I discovered about a month later that once a tape was mounted, if you rebooted the system you could no longer append media to that tape. Upgrading to v45 firmware (still the latest compaq has on their web site) seemed to clear this up.
After six months, when we begar to recycle media, is when the real hell began. I am having about 1 in 3 recycled tapes failing. I have tried erasing tapes using various methods and applications, I have tried long erases, short erases, erases using Compaq TSMC. Nothing has worked consistantly. I have found that if an erase fails, I can just set that off in my pile to return to quantum. (About once a month I send them a pile for exchange) However, a sucsessful long erase has not been a sure thing, the job can still fail.
If the backup is a sucsess, a restore also works from that media.
I have tried a variety of brand name media and I am getting sick of going to work on the weekend to swap out failed tapes. Has anyone seen this, and have they found a solution? We have a load of money already sunk into this hardware/media and I am going to be stuck with it for a while.
Our company needed a new file server and a new mail server, and data storage needs were growing. So we built two Proliant based system, each with a single Compaq branded SDLT 1 Drive. These are W2K Servers using ArcServe 2000.
We chose SDLT because of backward compatability, capacity, and speed.
We bought enough new media to get us through the first nine months, with the assumption that after six months passed we would beging to recycle media per out media retention policy. All was going fairly well, I would have the occasional new tape fail (roughly 1 in 10), and more often then I thought would be normal for a new tape, but it was livable.
I discovered about a month later that once a tape was mounted, if you rebooted the system you could no longer append media to that tape. Upgrading to v45 firmware (still the latest compaq has on their web site) seemed to clear this up.
After six months, when we begar to recycle media, is when the real hell began. I am having about 1 in 3 recycled tapes failing. I have tried erasing tapes using various methods and applications, I have tried long erases, short erases, erases using Compaq TSMC. Nothing has worked consistantly. I have found that if an erase fails, I can just set that off in my pile to return to quantum. (About once a month I send them a pile for exchange) However, a sucsessful long erase has not been a sure thing, the job can still fail.
If the backup is a sucsess, a restore also works from that media.
I have tried a variety of brand name media and I am getting sick of going to work on the weekend to swap out failed tapes. Has anyone seen this, and have they found a solution? We have a load of money already sunk into this hardware/media and I am going to be stuck with it for a while.
