StoreEver Tape Storage
1748136 Members
3822 Online
108758 Solutions
New Discussion

Ultrium 920 - LTT drive assessment"forward direction" rule fails

 
Denis Mante
Occasional Contributor

Ultrium 920 - LTT drive assessment"forward direction" rule fails

 

Hi all,

 

I am using for some time now an LTO3 Ultrium 920 drive.

It's a recent unit (2010) and not much used (1 year, 1 backup every day).

It's a EH841-6920 model, running up to date D22D firmware.

 

After a few months of good work, I have problems with it for a few weeks:

 

The backup speed became very slow, and when writing (even big files), it doesn't make a continuous motor noise like before, but mostly makes forward/rewind noises. Recently,  it requested cleaning. I used it, and it cleared the status.

 

I checked backup speeds with with LTT drive performance test, the results are very bad (just a few MB/s).

 

I ran LTT to check its health and did a drive assessment. I got the following results:

 

Offtrack margin : great margin

Channel variation margin : great margin

Head life : great margin (99% life remaining)

Reposition life : great margin (99% life remaining)

Load/unload life : great margin (99% life remaining)

 Drive has only ran 382 days, and has pulled 132.9 full volume equivalents (3.790.130 meters)

It displays 412 load/unload cycles, 4% duty cycles.

Temperature status says : great margin (60%)

 

1.8 m/sec tape speed - Great margin (data written : 1184.3 MB)

2.1 m/sec tape speed - Great margin (data written : 1184.3 MB)

2.4 m/sec tape speed - Great margin (data written : 1184.3 MB)

2.7 m/sec tape speed - Great margin (data written : 1184.3 MB)

3 .0 m/sec tape speed - Great margin (data written : 1184.3 MB)

3.4 m/sec tape speed - Great margin (data written : 789.6 MB)

3.7 m/sec tape speed - Great margin (data written : 789.6 MB)

4.0 m/sec tape speed - Great margin (data written : 789.6 MB)

Forward direction : warning (data written : 394.8 MB)

Reverse direction : great margin (data written : 8290.3 MB)

Problems have been reported

Drive no longer recommended for use

Please contact HP support for further assistance.

 

Any idea on what could be wrong before I put it aside ? (price for fixing is twice the price I paid for it).

 

By advance, I thank you for your expertise / advices,

 

Denis

 

 

P.S. this thread has been moved from Tape Backup (Small and Medium Business) to Tape Libraries and Drives - HP Forums moderator

 

2 REPLIES 2
Aasim
HPE Pro

Re: Ultrium 920 - LTT drive assessment"forward direction" rule fails

Hi Denis

 

>Try using a different media and then a run drive assesment test, check if you still get the same results.

>If the result still says drive is not recommended to use,there is a possibility the drive may be a problem.

>Log a case with HP and if serial num of tape drive shows its within warranty, then part can be replaced.

 


I work for HPEAccept or Kudo
wacktech2014
New Member

Re: Ultrium 920 - LTT drive assessment"forward direction" rule fails

Not saying this is the issue, but we started having problems with backups failing (server 2008r2, backup exec 2010, external SCSI Utrium 920) with error 'hardware error V-79-57344-34029 - A hardware error occurred.' showing in Backup Exec among others. The failures became more and more frequent. Initially thought it was a problem with the UPS it was plugged into as the battery was bad and I've seen momentary power interruptions happen when a device is connected to a bad UPS. Connected power to a good UPS but the failures continued.

 

Finally I checked cabling and noticed the SCSI connector on the back of the drive was damaged at one corner. Who knows when that happened...most likely at some point during the troubleshooting process. The connector on the cable had a couple of pins pushed together. I took the drive apart to look at the connectors from the inside to see if they might be swapped. They can't because they are part of a module that includes active SCSI termination.

 

I put everything back together and went to power on the drive and got nothing except a dimly flickering power button and an LED on the back of the unit indicating a fan power failure (although the fan was running). The status lights on the front of the drive were dark and it wasn't recognized by the server at all. This had actually happened once earlier (resulting in a stuck tape) but then after another power cycle the next day the drive status lights lit up like they should and the tape ultimately ejected after several minutes.

 

Now suspecting a power issue, I took the enclosure off again and then noticed 2 bulging capacitors on the power supply - one had actually leaked electrolyte. Needless to say I wasn't real happy to see that on a drive that is only a few years old. Unfortunately, the drive was out of warranty. When I went to power the drive up, sure enough I got the flickering power light again. The power supply isn't modular per se, although I did find someone selling a used enclosure on EBay that included the power supply. Ultimately one of my coworkers removed and replaced the bad capacitors and our backups haven't failed since. I think it's safe to say the bad caps were the root cause.