Hi Gil, Actually, it does make sense (at least to me) to have this threshold set. We've gone back more than once to rescue a developer or support person who inadvertently scratched a tape the day before and we were able to recover it for them by using this "expired but not really" feature. It is really no different from old physical tapes, where the data on a scratch tape wasn't really gone until the tape was physically written over. In those days, one could jump through hoops (and security) to get the contents brought back. This simply maintains that capability. Without the expire hold, as soon as the tape is scratch, the data is gone.
Rex -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin Sent: Thursday, February 8, 2024 4:19 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Reading a scratch tape rpomm...@sfgmembers.com> wrote: >In the "scratch category" settings, you can set an "expire hold" field that >tells the TS77xx how long to keep an expired tape before releasing it to >scratch. I believe that once that threshold is crossed, the TS77xx rewrites >the tape mark to the beginning of the tape and all data is lost - unless IBM >has some magic they can preform on the back end. > "Expired" but not really!? This makes as little sense as expecting to read a temporary data set in a subsequent job. With a physical tape one might EXCP, bypass errors, and recover some data. But when my employer was designing a product, we learned that some users expect the scratch pool to be managed FIFO. I was astonished. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The information contained in this message is confidential, protected from disclosure and may be legally privileged. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, distribution, copying, or any action taken or action omitted in reliance on it, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
