If you want to track the number of mounts TSM does to your tapes that's pretty easy, you can get it from the SUMMARY table.
Set up a query, for example : select date(start_time) , drive_name, volume_name from summary where activity='TAPE MOUNT' You can use perl (from Windoze or *IX) or a shell script from AIX to drive that query and send the output to a file. If you use the -commadelimited parm, you will get a comma-delimited file that looks like: header garbage 2002-12-dd, xxxmt1, VVVVVV trailer garbage You can have the script strip off the headers and trailers and append the data to the previous run to build a running log. I add some parms to the query to limit the date/time range to the past 24 hours, then run the script daily via cron (NT scheduler to you Windows types). So in effect, I"m creating an accounting log just for tape mounts. Since the output is comma-delimited, it's pretty easy to read the file with most anything -- SAS, perl, rexx, or even EXCEL if you don't let the file get too big -- and tally up your mount counts. That being said, I'm not sure how useful mount counts are in determining tape life. (I started doing this to track the mount load on my DRIVES, not the volumes specifically). I've never heard of a mount limit that determines the lifespan of a 3590. (Since we do vaulting, I expect to have my tapes damaged by mishandling long before they get a chance to wear out from mounting :>) On the other hand, it would be real nice to keep a data base like this, so if you start seeing I/O errors over time, you might have some useful data. ************************************************************************ Wanda Prather The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab 443-778-8769 [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think" - Scott Adams/Dilbert ************************************************************************ -----Original Message----- From: Diana Noble [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 10:25 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: When is a tape too old We use 3590 J's and K's. I've been asked what the lifespan of these tapes are. I've seen where the shelf life might be 10-12 years, but have not been able to find anything about the regular use of them. Our tapes are returned to scratch when they become empty, so they are not private tapes. It's my undertanding that we lose the number of mounts for the tape when it is moved from scratch into a private storage pool. Is there a way to track it's usage and and know when it's reaching it's maximum lifespan? Is there an approximate lifespan for these tapes when used regularly? Or do I just wait until IO errors start occurring and remove it then? Thanks, Diana
