Upgrading from LT02 to LT04 heads ???

[David Rudolph_1]

HAs anyone done this yet and what have been any issue's that you have seen when doing this? Thanks

[Veram_]

Hi David,

I guess this will be impossible ...

because I am not sure whether is it possible to by the LTO4 heads separate from any reseller. Then You must be very handy man to do this and upgrade the tape drive :D and HP-people say simply for such things "It is not supported (=not tested )". If you try this, please let me know whether it was successful , because there was a similar threat in some forum and it is still with no reply

Best Regards

[Richard Bickers]

Hi. I'm from HP's drive team and there's no way to do this I'm afraid. It takes us around eighteen months to two years to design each new generation drive because pretty much every component has to change to take account of the changes of the format and the increases to bit density etc.

Just to compound the issue, during manufacture the heads are set up very accurately using specialised equipment and then the whole drive is calibrated around it. If you replaced your LTO 2 head with another LTO 2 head it still wouldn't work. I've seen third party advertisers say they do this but there's no way they have the equipment they need - beware...

Not what you wanted to hear I guess but that's the situation. These drives are much more complex than most people think!

Richard.

[dirk dierickx]

yeah, he's right ofcourse. simply said, the difference between lto2 and lto4 is not just the head, most of the electronics behind it have changed as well.

[David Rudolph_1]

let me rephrase that we did the entire tape unit in a ms6000.

[David Rudolph_1]

Actually i just replaced the LT02 drives with the LT04 drives. and it went flawlessly. well a few small minor points but it went rather smoothly. Thank to everyone that had input.

[Richard Bickers]

You had us going there!

Be aware that the drives come in different variants determined by the firmware they have in them. The MSL will need the drive variant that's appropriate for it or it won't work.

Note you cannot change from one variant to another so you need to make sure you replace like variant with like.

I assume that's what you did which is why it went smoothly.

Good job!

[David Rudolph_1]

LOL sorry about that. The only issue i had was that when I brought the server back online i had to run through the device wizard and install the LT04 drivers. That was the only issue that I came across. now if you have any suggestions for speeding them up a bit, I am all ears.

[Richard Bickers]

You're going to need a fast system to keep up with the LTO 4s. Best bet is to use the L&TT device performance test to verify the HBA/cables/drives are going as expected (you do have U320 HBAs don't you?) and then use the L&TT system backup performance test to see how fast you can source the disk data.

Easy money would be on the disk IO being the bottleneck and that's not a simple/cheap exercise to fix.

At least you can enjoy the capacity.

We do have a web page on performance. Try http://www.hp.com/support/pat.

[David Rudolph_1]

Im actually in the progess in transfering over to a new machine. just really no time to do it. Now that they have seen it maybe i can get some time cut out and get it done.

[Shiju Samuel Thomas]

I assume what has been done is not just head replacement.
Rudolph, You have replaced the entire Drive LTO-2 with a LTO-4 Drive.
Was there any other Problems you faced, except in the Backup software detection phase?

[David Rudolph_1]

Actually no but you need to make sure that you have everything up to date including the HP L&TT util. that thing is awesome.

[gregersenj]

Beware of the cabling.

The old, original cabling guide said:
Cable from host to drive - from drive to lib ctrl - Terminator on the controller.

With LTO 3 (U320) Guess it also apply for LTO4
Cable from Host to Lib ctrl - from ctrl to drive - Terminate on drive.
Only 1 drive / channel recommended

cheers
/jag

[David Rudolph_1]

that was the other one i went by the cabling that they sent me. andi have found out when doing a test i cant get the full 320 and stuck at 160. and now i have also noticed from before the upgrade that i am getting a device going offline error in my systems log. wtf.

[David Rudolph_1]

SCSI Tape Drive Status Change.
The tape drive with SCSI target 1 connected to SCSI bus 1 of the controller in slot 1 has a new status of 5.
(Tape drive status values: 1=other, 2=ok, 3=failed, 5=offline, 6=missingWasOk, 7=missingWasFailed, 8=missingWasOffline)
[SNMP TRAP: 5019 in CPQSCSI.MIB]

that is the error that i am getting

[gregersenj]

Are you using the old terminators?
There new terminators for U320

Are you using an U320 HBA?

You must take very good care, aboute your SCSI cables. The VHDC connectors are very fragile.
People tends to leave the SCSI cable hanging, wich put a heavy load on the horizontal connectors. This will caurse bad connections.
In most cases problem is solved by replacing the cables. But I have had to replace a few connectors boards, due to this.
Tighten the screws well, and secure the cables on the RACK, using tie wraps, or velcro.

In short:
U320 HBA
Cables - ok, and correct cabling and secured.
U320 Terminators.
Drivers - up to date.
Ensure. Windows removable storage is disabled.