LTO Device on an HP9000 Jxxx Workstation

[Ranjith_5]

Hi Experts,

Is LTO drives are supported on a J class workstation? If yes which all models are supported?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Syam

[Bernhard Mueller]

Syam,

you should have a dedicated SCSI card for the tape drive, Ultra2 or higher and make sure the stape driver is in the kernel.

So the question acutally is: do you have a free PCI slot, and a card such as e.g. A5149A.

If you are stil using 11.0 and have a newer, faster card using the c8xx driver you may need to add HWE patches.

Regards,
Bernhard

[Ranjith_5]

Hi Mueller,

Thanks a lot for ur reply.

Here is some more info.

My workstation model is J5600

I have connected a HP Ultrium 215e drive (Q1545A) to this workstation.

SCSI interface model is C87x Ultra Wide Differential. Will this support the mentioned LTO device?

Attached some information. Pls see the attached txt file.

regards,
Syam

[Thayanidhi · Accepted solution]

I believe all LTO drives are LVD. If you have differentail interface(HVD) on J5600, then it may spoil the device. Either you should have LVD interface, or think of putting DLT with Differential interface.

I am not sure what interface you have, may be the attached file help to find out what SCSI it is!!

Regds

TT

[Bernhard Mueller]

Syam,

TT is correct you have the wrong cards (HVD or "simple" Ultra Wide Diff, while you need *Ultra2* Wide Diff / LVD).

Regards,
Bernhard

[Anthony Lennan]

Hi Syam,

TT & Bernhard are correct in saying that you should not connect your HP 215 LTO drive to your Fast Wide Diff interface. You may damage your drive as your interface is HVD while you drive is LVD.

You have a few options but unfortunately none of them are ideal with your current hardware:

1) If you can get your hand on a IBM LTO drive you may be able to connect that to your HVD interface as I know that IBM LTO's are available with HVD interfaces.
2) You could potentially attach your current 215 LVD drive using an LVD cable to a single ended interface if your machine has one. Your drive would then drop down to SE speed (20MB per second) but should be useable. I would strongly discourage you from doing it this way though as the performance of your LTO drive will be extremely limited and would render it no quicker than a lowly DTL drive.
3) As Bernhard suggested, if available you could use a HVD DLT drive instead.

If this is to be a permanent setup I would recommend getting an LVD card or look at using a different drive.

Rgds,
Anthony

[Ranjith_5]

Hi,

Thanks for all your replys.
I understand that I cant make LTO working
with my existing setup. It is unsupported on the setup which I presently have. I should have a A4999A - PCI Ultra2 LVD SCSI adapter to make this LTO working on HP J,C and B class workstations.

Proof:-
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http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/compatibility/tapebackup/Workstations/index.html

Supported Replys( current thread):-
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http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=854779

Closing thread.

Regards,
Syam