Problems with MSL5000 with 2x LTO2 drives (Arcserve 9)

[Kelly Davey]

Hiya

We're having some issues with one of our backup libraries - it's an MSL5000 which has two of the LTO2 upgrade drives in it (you can't run standard LTO2 in an MSL5000). The firmware on the library is 0507 and the drives is F59W. We're running Arcserve 9, which is service packed/patched to the latest level. The problem that initially occurred was that the backups were slowing down and the drives were writing less than the native capcacity of the tapes - this we were going from 3 to 5 tapes per job. We swapped out what we believed was a defective drive but now we are getting a media error on the backup job on the first tape - the makeup job is submitted successfully but still runs a lot slower than we would expect and copies less data than the native capacity on each tape. HP haven't been able to determine the cause as of yet - does anyone out there have any advice?

On a side note, does anyone know how to downgrade the library firmware using HPL&TT - I have the older firmware in my respository but it does not show up in my installable dropdown list when I am trying to downgrade it?

Thanks
Kel