IBM 3592-E05 (TS1120) tape drives on Solaris 10

[Marianne]

We need to know how other users have configured these drives on Solaris 10.
Is there a specific st patch level required for this drive type? st.conf entries maybe?

The IBM installation guide says the IBM tape driver should be used and target and lun numbers should be commented out in st.conf.
The NBU Compatibilty Guide merely says that it is supported on Solaris 8, 9 and 10 and only mentions IBM tape driver for HP-UX and AIX.

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

sorry I can not show you detail, Marianne.I post this by iPhone. What model of drive is in your TS1120. Check inqury string like IBM ULTRIUM-TDx, x indicates Ultrium(LTO) generation. Then find in Readme from what patch Solaris supports this drive. x86 http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-21-118855-36-1 Sparc http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-21-118833-36-1 Note: patches above are not latest ones, but major update.  Without st patch, most drives works by modifying st.conf.But formaly Sun does not support by this form, HW vendor is responsible for st.conf entry. It is better to ask your HW vendor what patch should you apply and what should you write in st.conf.

[Marianne]

The inquiry string returns IBM 3592 (it's not an LTO).
I am desperately trying to find a Solaris (Sparc) patch README that lists native support for this drive type. I managed to fnd a very recent kernel patch (127127-11) but this drive type is not listed.
If I do 'strings st |grep -i ibm' on the current st driver, it lists IBM LTO's, not the 3592.
The HW vendor says that IBM tape driver should be used and target and luns for IBM drives to be commented out in st.conf. The NBU sg driver does not pick up the IBM device names if that driver is used - only st.
I am hoping that someone on this forum is actually using these drives and can share their experience.

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

I misunderstood 3592 is shipping name of some LTO drive. I also could not find any information about IBM 3592 in SunSolve.

[dami]

Hi Marrianne,

A couple of things which may or may not help. We use these (really good) TS1120 tape drives but I only have windows media servers attached to them. One thing I do recall very clearly at least from Solaris 8 is that you COULD NOT use IBM TAPE drivers with it. I would have thought that it is likely to be the same with Solaris 10.

This doc says it is supported:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/resources/systems_storage_tape_pdf_compatibility_ts1120_interop.pdf

but note it says "3592 J1A only" .... are these your drives ? I guess the best people to ask would be Symantec, they should know if these drives are being used with NBU on Solaris somewhere - IBM are a bit less well informed and their web sites are soooooo complicated !!

[Marianne]

Hi Dami
Thanks for the response. The only info that I can find in IBM and Symantec documentation is that it is supported with no other helpful info (e.g. st patch level, st.conf entries, etc.. etc..)
I have sent the request to Symantec as well. So far no response.

[Marianne]

Hi Dami
Thanks for the response. The only info that I can find in IBM and Symantec documentation is that it is supported with no other helpful info (e.g. st patch level, st.conf entries, etc.. etc..)
I have sent the request to Symantec as well. So far no response.