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Grouping Tape Drives
During the installation, having an understanding about how to logically group and install the
tape drives in an SL8500 can minimize both elevator and PTP activity. Strategies to use when
determining where to install the tape drives include:
❏
Clustering drives
❏
Using the CAP
❏
Exceeding limits
❏
Using the TLC/FSM
tool
❏
Installing redundant
HandBots (8)
❏
Managing tapes
TM0017 • Revision B
Install tape drives that use the same media types on the same rails
(LSMs). For example: place T9840 drives on one rail and T9940 drives
on a different rail with the media to match.
Potential issues:
Clustering tape drives and media on the same rail works well until:
•
The number of mounts exceeds the capacity of the HandBots.
•
There are too many "active" cartridges to fit on that rail
•
The number of concurrently mounted tapes exceeds the maximum
number of tape drives.
Indicating:
There are too many active cartridges on that rail for the HandBots to
mount (keep up with) or not enough tape drives.
Recommendation:
When resources for a specific workload exceeds the capacity of a rail,
spread the cartridges and drives over two or more rails. Some
suggestions might be to:
•
Add more tape drives (if possible).
•
Add expansion modules to increase cartridges for that rail
•
Use the TLC/FSM tool to model and re-evaluate the content.
•
Upgrade to an eight HandBot configuration.
Enter tape cartridges so compatible media is on the same rail with the
tape drives.
For example: enter cartridges using a CAP magazine adjacent to the
desired rail (LSM) where compatible tape drives are located.
Configure heavy tape applications so they do not exceed the
performance limits of that LSM and/or library configuration.
For example: limit peak HSM workloads by the number of concurrent
recalls in that configuration.
Use the SE tool TLC/FSM (Tape Library Configurator / Field Simulation
Model) to determine the optimal drive configurations. When you supply
a configuration and a workload (trace file of the mounts), TLC/FSM can
output drive utilization statistics and suggestions.
See
Chapter 7, Tape Library Configurator Field Simulation
Configuring the SL8500 with eight HandBots (two HandBots per
rail) provides redundancy.
Install drives in the outer two columns (± 2) first—this allows both
HandBots to access drives at the same time.
Use ExLM to help manage tape locations to provide quick access to
tape drives.
Library Content Management
Chapter 2 Library Content Management 39
Model.
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