MSL5026 drives going offline

[ianvt]

We have 2 MSL5026 tape libraries connected to MDR's attched to a SAN. The tape libraries go offline approx once a week. You have to reboot the library, MDR and all servers that use the tape drives. We are using the latest firmware and drivers. The backup software is Veritas Backup Exec 9.1. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

[Claudio Ruzza_1]

Are you using Selective Storage presentation (=static maps) on your MDR's?
If SSP is not implemented, read this thread:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=174082

Disable the Windows Service named Removable Storage.

Hope this helps
Claudio

[ianvt]

Thanks for the reply Claudio. We are not using SSP. I think our problem could be the Removable Storage Service. We used to have these disabled, but we have recently migrated to Windows 2003 and have neglected to disable this service. I have also found a customer advisory regarding RSM in Windows 2003 (OT040301_CW01). We have disabled the services and applied the advisory. I will let you know if this fixes our problem. Thanks for the help.
Ian

[Claudio Ruzza_1]

Ian,
my personal advice is to implement SSP.
Looks a bit complicated at the beginning, but assures more reliability of your environment.
I give you an example:
-tape drive 1 suddenly deads
-during your tests you power cycle the MDR
-the MDR may detect your drive and mark as offline OR believe that your library has a single drive and marks drive 2 with the fc LUN previously assigned to drive 1
-backup Exec get crazy mounting media in phisical drive 2 and issuing read/write command to drive 1.

With static maps (SSP) you will assign a unique FC LUN to every drive, no matter if one deads, the OS and BE will always address the correct drive.

Hope this helps
Claudio Ruzza