A3716A 144 GB DDS-3 Autoloader for MPE/iX

by Aida Silva Commercial Systems Division

Product Overview

The A3716A is a high-speed high-capacity tape product combined with an autoloader. The tape drive conforms to the DDS-3 standard. The autoloader houses six cartridges in the magazine. DDS-3 tape allows 12 GB of uncompressed data to be stored on 125m DDS-3 Tapes. It ensures backward compatibility in reading and writing existing DDS tapes. The sustained data rate on uncompressed data tape is 1 MBPS.

Support Information

The A3716A is a Single-Ended SCSI-2 Device. The A3716A is supported on MPE/iX Release 6.0.

	NOTE: The A3716A is NOT supported on MPE/iX 5.0, and there are currently no plans for 5.0 Support of this device.

Configuration

A3716A is supported only on MPE/iX NIO platform. It is not supported on MPE/iX CIO platform. A3716A can be configured on single-ended NIO SCSI card. The autoloader option switch settings should be set to 6 (Stacker mode). Other mode settings are NOT supported.

Configuration Example

On an NIO machine, Path 52 is configured as follows:

io>lp  52

PATH:  52                             LDEV:
ID:  A1703-60003-SCSI                 TYPE:  DA
PMGR: SCSI_DAM                        PMGRPRI:   6
LMGR:                                 MAXIOS:    0

If the SCSI ID of the device is 3, and path 52.3 is not configured:

io>addpath path=52.3 id=pseudo
 
io>ad ldev=31 path=52.3.0 id=hpc1557A

Verify the configuration using the LDEV and LP commands as shown in the following example:

  io>ldev 31
  LDEV:  31     DEVNAME:                OUTDEV:    0   MODE:
  ID:  HPC1557A                         RSIZE:   128   DEVTYPE:  TAPE
  PATH:  52.3.0                         MPETYPE:  24   MPESUBTYPE:  7
  CLASS: TAPE
 
  io>lp 52.3.0
  PATH:  52.3.0                         LDEV:    31
  ID:  HPC1557A                         TYPE:  TAPE
  PMGR: SCSI_TAPE_DM                    PMGRPRI:  10
  LMGR:  LOGICAL_DEVICE_MANAGER         MAXIOS:    0
 
  io>lp 52.3
 
  PATH:    52.3                         LDEV:
  ID:   PSEUDO                          TYPE:   DA
  PMGR: TRANSPARENT_MGR                 PMGRPRI:    6
  LMGR:                                 MAXIOS:     0

Operating Instructions

If you need to store more than one tape per day, you should purchase multiple devices or consider other technology.

	WARNING! This device is intended for customers who need to store one tape per day (maximum 12 GB on DDS-3 tape). Writing more than one tape per day will exceed the duty cycle of this technology. This could result in premature failure of the device, and more importantly, you may face DATA LOSS due to unrecoverable errors.

The A3716A device magazine holds up to 6 DDS tapes.

With this usage, it is recommended that you load the magazine with five DDS-3 cartridges in slots one to five and a cleaning cassette in the sixth slot. The device should then be configured with the auto tape eject feature. With this configuration and the magazine loaded with the recommended cartridges, you could then perform backups Monday through Friday, without any intervention. After backup on the fifth cartridge, the drive will be cleaned automatically by the cleaning cassette from the sixth slot.

You can then load new tapes into the magazine (or a new magazine) and start the next week's cycle.

To set the tape eject option, the autoloader switch setting must be six and the following command should be issued interactively, before backup is started (assuming your A3716A is LDEV #31):

:run devctrl.mpexl.telesup 31 eject=enable