Switch from DLT4000 to DLT7000

[simo1]

Hi folks,

We are running Networker 5.1 under Solaris 2.6 and use a StorageTek 9710 with 2 DLT4000 tape drives. We are considering moving to DLT7000 drives, but I suspect there are a number of issues
1. Are there any patches/changes required to Networker?
2. Any patches to Solaris ?
3. Are any device drivers needed?
4. Existing tapes - do they automatically take on the new capacity or do they need re-formating?

Thanks

Simon

 

[ag100]

We made a similar switch a while back.. It shouldn't involve too much.. Just make sure that the /kernel/drv/st.conf is configured correctly.

Also, if you're staying with DLT drives, and don't want to wait for the SuperDLT drives to be qualified with STK jukeboxes, you may want to look at DLT8000 drives. They hold a bit more, and should write a bit faster.

As for re-formatting tapes.. If you're using DLT IV tapes already, and they're marked as recyclable, you shouldn't have any issues. If they're not marked as recyclable, mark them that way, so that the tape gets relabeled when it's used.

That's all I can think of for now.. Good Luck!

 

[thanic]

As ag100 says its not too much effort. I don't know about Solaris 2.6, but the /kernel/drv/st.conf entries for the Quantum DLT7000 in Solaris 7 are good (uncommented of course) so if you can check these against those in Solaris 2.6.

You should also change the device type to DLT7000 in Networker ... under nwadmin "media" "devices". I can't remember whether you can do this without deleting the drive and starting again though.

Make sure you use the cbn tape device name to get the full capacity of the DLT7000 e.g. /dev/rmt/0cbn.

I don't know whether you can write to a tape with a 7000 that has already got 4000 data on it so I would mark any non-empty 4000 tapes as full. When they recycle they should work fine.

 

[bommer]

We upgraded to DLT7000's last year from 4000's. We had problems with the old tapes being recognized by the Networker media management index. Therefore we couldn't get our STK 9710 robot to mount the tapes in our drives. We had to set up a stand-alone DLT7000 attached to a PC and put a new header on the old 4000 tapes as they returned from offsite. I believed we just used Microsoft's backup product to do this. New tapes were no problem. Maybe we were an exception, but Legato couldn't suggest an easier solution.

 

[Guest_imported]

We get much better results from /dev/rmt/0ubn rather than /dev/rmt/0cbn using Solstice Backup (Networker) 5.1 and Solaris 7.

 

[wmg]

Another thing to think about is (according to the local HP engineer), you shouldn't daisy chain DLT7000 drives (which works fine with DLT4000 ones). Evidently, each drive needs it's own bus (and one can share a bus with the robot).

We were having loads of read errors and it does seem to have been caused by daisy chaining them.

 

[ag100]

WMG,

Hi. What errors were you seeing? I've been daisy chaining DLT7000 drives for a few years now, without incident. The only thing I had a problem with is performance issues if you more than 2 drives on the bus.

If it's an issue, I'll help if I can.

-ag100