lto tape drive training

www.trt.com.au

IBM LTO Tape Drivesand Libraries

Hardware Training – June 2005 Copyright Total RISC Technology 2005

www.trt.com.au

Overview

www.trt.com.au

3580Tape Stuck in the drive

Data cable not connected

LVD vs HVD

LTO1 vs LTO2 (and LTO3, etc)

3581 AutoloaderTape Stuck in Drive

Tape Stuck in Picker

Tape Drive Sled Basics

SCSI Addressing

Sled Basics

3582 12 Slot LibraryTape stuck in Magazine

Fibre Channel

3583 72 Slot Library

www.trt.com.au

• Open the drive. Take the drive out of the enclosure. Open the drive cover, by taking off the front panel, then the silver cover on top. You do NOT need to remove any gears, motors, etc. There are no TRT serviceable or TRT replacable FRUs inside

3580 (single Drive)Tape Stuck in Drive

www.trt.com.au


• The LTO drive works by retrieving the tape leader from inside the LTO cartridge, and pulling it through the drive onto the spooler. The spooler (the big round wheel) then winds the whole tape onto it, until the tape has been sufficiently read or written to.

www.trt.com.au


• Most tape jams occur when the drive attempts to unload the tape, and the leader pin is stuck somewhere. The drive then displays an error, and will not operate.

• To fix this, you will need to (once the tape drive is open) do two things: Manually guide the leader pin through the drive, and manually turn the small motor, which is located at the front of the drive (when looking at the top, with the drive slot towards you, it is on the front right at the top).

www.trt.com.au


• The motor is about 5CM including the gear (the gear is about 2 or 3 cm long)

• Whilst doing this, also turn the bolt under the tape drive Clockwise.

www.trt.com.au


• The tape drive must be in the “ejected” state before it will power on correctly. If it isn’t “rewound” it will produce an error, normally “6” on the drive.

www.trt.com.au

3580 (single Drive)Data Cable Not Connected

• There is a small data cable, with a connector approximately 1cm by about 0.1cm (ie 1mm thick), which connects between the LTO tape drive, and the display unit for the enclosure. If this is loose or disconnected, it will cause the tape drive to fail.

www.trt.com.au

3580 (single Drive)HVD vs LVD

• Make sure that the LVD drive is only used on the LVD SCSI interface on a system, and a HVD drive is only used on a HVD SCSI interface on a system. You can normally tell by the label (eg 4_B is HVD, 4-K is SE but LTO drive will work slowly), etc.... Also, you must match this correctly with the appropriate SCSI terminator and cable.

www.trt.com.au

3580 (single Drive)HVD vs LVD

• The tape drives used in the LTO enclosures are all LVD, even if the enclosure is HVD. The difference will be in a converter used in the HVD models, to drop down to LVD connection to the SCSI tape drive.

• Make sure that the drive has the right firmware

www.trt.com.au

3580 (single Drive)Firmware

• The drive firmware can be updated using a program called tapeutil

• Enter “Tape Drive Service Aids”.

www.trt.com.au

3580 (single Drive)Driver

• All IBM 3580 Tape Drives use the Atape fileset (under AIX) to allow AIX to communicate with the drive and library correctly. Run lslpp –l Atape.* to list the current version of driver installed.

• If Atape is not correctly installed, you will not see the description “IBM 3580 Tape Drive” in “lsdev –Cc tape”, rather something like “Other Tape Drive”

www.trt.com.au

3580 (single Drive)LTO1 vs LTO2 (& LTO3)

• LTO1 = 100MB Native (up to 200MB Compressed)



• There is a significant difference between LTO1 and LTO2 tape drives.

• The two tape drives are not interchangeable within the same enclosure (ie you cannot place an LTO1 tape drive in a 3580-L23 enclosure, nor can you install an LTO2 tape drive into a 3580-L11 tape drive)

• The data cable connector is different for LTO1 and LTO2

• The LTO2 tape drive can read/write LTO1 media, however the LTO2 media will NOT work in the LTO1 drive

www.trt.com.au

3581 (7 Slot Autoloader)TSM/AIX

• It is best to stop TSM, before operating on the library. If there is more than 1 library, you can disable individual devices within TSM.

www.trt.com.au

3581 (7 Slot Autoloader)Tape Jammed in Drive

• Remove all screws from the rear of the autoloader, which will allow the sled to be released from the autoloader. The LTO drive is screwed onto the sled, and the sled contains a lot of electronics external to the drive.

www.trt.com.au

3581 (7 Slot Autoloader)Tape Jammed in Drive

• The SCSI cable, power cable, and data cable all connect to the circuitry on the sled. The sled then connects to the autoloader via a multi pin connector .

• To remove the drive from the sled, simply disconnect the cables, and unscrew it. Then follow the above instructions for the 3580 tape drive.

www.trt.com.au

3581 (7 Slot Autoloader)Tape Stuck in Picker

• First try powering off the autoloader for about 10 seconds (including disconnecting mains power). Then power it back on. Most of the time, this will resolve the issue.

• If you need to manually remove a tape (for instance, if the barcode label has “glued” the tape to the picker after coming unstuck from the tape’s label position), you can gently force the mechanical movement when power is switched off to the autoloader. It may be easier to remove the sled before working on it.

www.trt.com.au

3581 (7 Slot Autoloader)Sled Basics

• LTO Tape Libraries use drive sleds as a simple way of interchanging components

• The Sled is a Field Replaceable Unit and can be swapped as a whole unit.

• Alternatively, you can keep the same sled, and replace the onboard drive (same drive regardless of LVD or HVD Library)

www.trt.com.au

3581 (7 Slot Autoloader)SCSI Addressing

• The SCSI addresses are set by the menu through the panel on the front

• There is a SCSI address for the drive and a SCSI address for the library.

• AIX recognises the tape drive as /dev/rmtX

• AIX recognises the library as /dev/smcX

www.trt.com.au

3581 (7 Slot Autoloader)Sequential Access

• The factory setting for the library is for the tapes to be loaded and unloaded via library management software (eg TSM, Tapeutil) or via the front panel. This is called “Random Access”

• There is another mode of tape access, where the tapes are written to sequentially, and accessed from slot 1, through to slot 7. Weir Warman uses this mode.

• When operating in Sequential mode, there is no “smcX” device in AIX

www.trt.com.au

3581 (7 Slot Autoloader)Sequential Access

• To change between modes, • 1. Ensure that LdR REAdY or SEQ REAdY appears on the

message display.• 2. Press and hold the NEXT button and then the MODE button

until dIAG MENU appears on the message display• 3. Press MODE until CHG MOdE appears on the message

display.• 4. Press SELECT to display the current mode of operation.• 5. Press NEXT or PREVIOUS to toggle the mode between

SEQUENTIAL and RANdOM.• 6. Choose the mode that you want and press SELECT. CYCLE

PWR blinks on the message display. • 7. To activate the new mode of operation, cycle power (turn off,

then on) to the 3581 Tape Autoloader

www.trt.com.au

3582 (12 Slot Rack Mount)Tape Stuck in Magazine

• A key may be required to open the front door.

• An electronic lock prevents the door being opened whilst the library is in use

• If someone has inserted the tape into the magazine backwards, the tape may need to be destroyed to extract it.

www.trt.com.au

3582 (12 Slot Rack Mount)Fibre Channel

• The library can have SCSI or Fibre channel interface for the drive and library

• AIX device names will be the same as 3581, (eg /dev/smcX, etc), regardless of Fibre Channel or SCSI

• Update of Microcode should be performed via Serial interface using a notebook, NOT from AIX

www.trt.com.au

3582 (12 Slot Rack Mount)Firmware

• Firmware updates are different for Fibre Channel and SCSI

• Never try to upgrade the Library Firmware via the RMU. It can take more than 60 minutes

• RMU on 3582 and above is optional but ideal for remote environments, so recommend where possible.

• Library firmware should be completed before drive firmware, library firmware is upgradeable via serial, drive firmware should be done via SCSI interface.

• Whenever experiencing TSM problems due to hardware errors, always update library firmware before replacing parts.

www.trt.com.au

3583 (Up to 72 Slot)Overview

• Same as 3582 in most ways, except has more slots.

• IO Station can be 1 slot or 10 Slots, depending on customer requirements

• Can come in an 18, 36, or 72 slot version

• Often the library is mounted on wheels, but can be rack mounted

www.trt.com.au


• To service the library, the front door can be opened (this will stop all library operations)

www.trt.com.au


• Up to 6,887 cartridges in up to 16 frames

• Up to 192 LTO1 or LTO2 drives

• Up to 1,878 TB native capacity

• Oooooh... I want one

lto tape drive training

Documents