StorageTek 9708 Tape library

From: Brian Chase <vaxzilla_at_jarai.org>
Date: Tue Sep 24 01:19:00 2002

On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Brian Hechinger wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 05:57:36PM -0700, Geoff Reed wrote:

> > the robot isn't controlled via the '232 port, that is for diagnostics and
> > maintenance.
>
> do you know the info for that port? 9600,8n1? DTE or not? etc.
>
> > you need to have software that recognizes the robot. I set
> > up a couple of 97xx series libraries a few years back for Experience Music
> > Project.
>
> so it's not just a "regular scsi device" then? my SPARCstation LX running
> NetBSD 1.6 certainly can't see the robot, although it sees the drives just
> fine.
>
> do you know where to find the special software to run this thing?
> StorageTek seems to think this thing never existed.

It looks like Tivoli's (IBM's) TSM supports it, and I'd imagine that
VERITAS NetBackup supports it as well (on the operating systems their
server software supports). Both TSM and NetBackup have command-line
utilities for manually manipulating the robotics and drives of these
sorts of devices. I'd have to double-check, but it may be possible to
run these tools independently of having licensed server software.

> > we used a Clariion branded LVM (Library volume manager) that, in
> > conjunction with a raid array made the tape drive look like a 17 terabyte
> > disk :)
>
> oh, that's too cool.

Not quite as cool as my 135TB LTO based ADIC Scalar 10K which does the
same! My job is all about designing and operating massive storage
systems.

-brian.
Received on Tue Sep 24 2002 - 01:19:00 BST