Tim,
What error message do you get when you run pat? Pat should work fine on your setup. If you are getting a real error it would help us to have more info as we can possibly fix the bug in the next release.
The vast majority of issues we see with performance are invariably system related rather than drive related. The Ultrium products require well tuned systems to keep them fed. Your setup looks like it should be ok so I am not sure why you are having issues. There have been some issues with older adaptec drivers slugging performance as someone else mentioned so I would definitely check that.
Here is a link to a hp perf troubleshooting guide that might help
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=lpg50460#P5_340 The HP Ultrium drives use data rate matching DRM technology.
The 215 will keep streaming down to 6MB/s native. Obviously, achieving 7.5MB/s native is better for performance.
The Ultrium 230 has a DRM range of 6-15MB/s and the Ultrium 460 has a range of 10-30MB/s.
As long as you hit transfer rates in these ranges the tape drive will be streaming (not repositioning) and wear and tear on heads, drive and media will be minimised.
If the data transfer rate from the host varies, and it typically does with real customer data, the drives will slow down and speed up within their DRM ranges to try to keep streaming, quite clever really :-)
One other thing to bear in mind with the 215, if it detects that the thermal environment is too hot, then it will limit its performance to 6MB/s. LTT has a thermal cooling check test you can run on any HP Utrium drive to check that it has been installed with adequate cooling. My guess is that you have your 215's installed internally in your servers.
You might want to run the cooling check after you have solved your other performance issue if you find you can't get more than 6MB/s.
Cheers,
Dave Dewar.
