Back a while ago, I posted a similar discussion about the trials and tribulations of tape drive (TS1120/TS1130) replacement and the work it caused when the serial number changed (rebooting and reconfiguring all TSM servers). I was enlightened that the new drives serial number could be reset to the old drives serial number and the issue of having to reboot all 7-TSM servers because of a drive replacement, was, I thought, resolved.
Well, I haven't had a need to drive replacement since then........until now. What I discovered was that even with the replacement drive co-opting the serial number of the failing drive, I still have to reboot all of my servers. Yes, I made sure to update the new drives serial number BEFORE plugging in the fibre cable. Took the library and drives offline in TSM Yet, as soon as the failing drive was unplugged (or at least it seems that way), the /dev/IBMtape? device becomes unavailable and no amount of stopping/restarting the lin_tape processes will make the drive accessible. Reboot is required. Any attempt to open the drive via IBMtapeutil fails (Operation failed with errno 5: Input/output error). So, what are we doing wrong? How do you handle tape drive repairs/replacement? To recap my environment: IBM3494 with TS1120 and TS1130 drives connected via fibre CISCO SAN switches Single path to each drive (not enough switch ports) RHEL4 and RHEL5 servers My SAN guy says we are not mapping drives by WWN - pools/groups I think (sorry - I don't know the terminology) - all tape drives and servers that use them are separate from disk connections Zoltan Forray TSM Software & Hardware Administrator Virginia Commonwealth University UCC/Office of Technology Services [email protected] - 804-828-4807 Don't be a phishing victim - VCU and other reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, social security number or confidential personal information. For more details visit http://infosecurity.vcu.edu/phishing.html
