DAT 24i Fail often

[BR708608]

I have many types of tape drives, DLT, Traven, and DAT make up most of them. The only drives that fail like they are on a schedule to fail are my DAT24i models. The DAT24i in my email server has failed 4 times under warranty, each time it was replaced by HP. The question I have now is, do all DAT24i's fail like this, or is it unique to the HP model? The major failure is the one where it makes a washing machine type sound. This last one was an I/O failure after several hundred magabytes are written. The exact amount of data before it fails varies from 40 MB to 350 Mb, but it will fail. Changing the tape didn't fix this. I ran through the diagnostics with HP support, and did the head alignment, and cleaning. The drive was replaced so many times, I can't produce a receipt that will match anything on record. Not to mention that the drive may be 3 years old, or older; not this one, but the original one. This drive was last replaced in May of this year. Like I said, it had been replaced approx. four times. So if I am the only one with this type of experience with DAT24i, what could be the problem? I am out shopping for a new drive now. Joe

[meloni]

hi
note that not all the tape drive works in the same way,
If you have performance problems on your server, the drive have to stop and reposition lots of time, this could create more problems that if a drive run in streaming mode and sam more and more data.
this can be a cause of hight rate failure. You can use PAT (performance Assesment Tool) in order to troubleshoot this kind of problem.
bye
marino

[Rothery Harris]

Dear Joseph,
Always make sure use use DDS-3 125m tapes from a reputable supplier (HP,Maxell, etc). Although the drive will write and read DDS-1 and DDS-2 tape it not advisable to regularly change tape length as it re-profiles the read/write heads. You should also check the environment that your system is in. Is it hot & dusty? Always allow tapes to acclimatise before use if they are stored in another room or building to the server.
If you are looking for a new drive the DDS-4 will probably fit your needs.

Regards

Rothery

[CA821585]

I used 4 external dat24's for 5 years with no failures. I did use only tapes made by hp and cleaned them every week.

[BR708608]

I use maxelle tapes most of the time, some of the other drives have Fuji tapes, but not the 24i.
HP support said that cleaning the drive once a week was too often and would damage the drive. This was told to me during a conversation about the failure rate of the HP 24i. The drive backs up at 98MB/min, and as best as I can tell, it is doing more streaming than stop and go. The drive I used to do a sawp so I could get a good backup is a Seagate and it has never failed. The server that has had all the failed HP 24i's has been changed since the first 24i, but the failures continued. The latest drive was replaced this past March 02, and now again today. The manufacture date is the 13th week of 02 on the latest bad drive, and the problem is an I/O error. Mosty of the other failures were the type that produce that washing machine noise that HP has a recording of on their web page. This error happens so often that they want you to download the wav file of the sound and compare it to what you are hearing to make sure they are replacing a bad drive. I have had that particular failure that I can tell you the drive is bad by listening to it. I don't need any recording to know it when I hear it.
I just checked the log file on last nights backup. It appears that the I/O failure is caused by the controller because it is still there. So this drive may have not failed. that would mean that every other failure that caused the washing machine sound is the only type of failure I have ever had with these drives, so we can reduce the quantity of failed 24i's in my case by one. That would still be two too many for me.