[Info-vax] Replacement of SCSI tape drives and loaders

[Kari Uusimäki]

On 21.1.2010 22:24, Syltrem wrote:
> "Kari Uusimäki"<uusimaki at exdecWITHOUTTHISfinland.org>  wrote in message
> news:4b58aff3$0$26371$9b536df3 at news.fv.fi...
>> On 21.1.2010 21:11, Syltrem wrote:
>>
>> Yes, you can do it live, when you keep in mind some basic, but very
>> important things.
>> First, do not connect or disconnect peripherals when they are switched on.
>> Do always switch them off before making any changes. Preferably disconnect
>> the power cord also.
>> Second, you have to mind about the SCSI addresses to be sure you don't
>> have two devices with same address. That will really produce unpredictable
>> behaviour.
>> Third, it is good to update the I/O structures when you have disconnected
>> the old peripherals and connected the new ones, but before you switch the
>> new ones on, by issuing the command
>> $ MC SYSMAN IO AUTO /LOG
>> The old peripherals should turn from online to offline.
>> Then switch the new ones on and do once more
>> $ MC SYSMAN IO AUTO /LOG
>> Now the new peripherals should appear in the device list.
>
> I I used the same SCSI ID, I would just see the device going from online to
> offline, then to online again. Riight ?
> And it's safe to keep the same SCSI address (if I can do that then I won't
> be left with a non-existing device showing up on VMS)

It would be better to choose another address, because VMS expects to 
find the same device at the same address when it comes online again.

>
>> The speed of the drive should be correct at once if your version of
>> OpenVMS recognizes it correctly (i.e. the VMS version is new enough).
>> There might be a faint possibility that someone would have fiddled with
>> the SCSI adapter settings which would cause the bus not to work with full
>> speed. But you'll find that out when you test the drive.
>> One thing you probably need to do is to generate the robotics control
>> device on the machine where you connect the tape library.
>
> The GKxu device will not get created automatically with the SYSMAN IO AUTO ?

Absolutely not. The GKDRIVER is not loaded automatically unless someone 
has configured somewhere in the startup procedures.


>
>> You can do that live also. You need th know the bus ID and the SCSI ID of
>> the robotics controller. Lets say it is SCSI ID 1 on the third SCSI bus
>> (C)
>
> Right now the robot is GKA0 and the drives are MKA400 and MKA500:
> Isn't the robot always 0 ? I thought this was how it worked. Or maybe it's
> just because it was assigned SCSI id 0 at install time. I have 2 and both
> are on ID 0, but on different buses (GKA0 and GKB0)

The robotics SCSI ID is settable from the library control panel. The ID 
doesn't matter much. Choose whatever you like, but remember not to have 
two different peripherals on the same SCSI bus with the same ID.

One more thing as was pointed out in another post; the TL891 is a HVD 
SCSI peripheral and the LTO4 is LVD. These aren't compatible. The HVD 
bus and the LVD bus operate at different voltages. That means in 
practise that you need a HVD bus for the TL891 and a LVD bus for the 
LTO4. It's not anything magical - you just have to use different 
adapters. E.g. a KZPBA-CY is good for the TL891 and a KZPEA-DB would be 
a good adapter for the LTO4.

>
>> $ MC SYSMAN IO CONNECT GKC100: /NOADAPTER /DRIVER=SYS$GKDRIVER
>> Then you should have a device named GKC100: which is the one you need to
>> access the robotics. Most probably you need to update your backup
>> application or procedure to include the robotics device name.
>> If you have the MRU utility installed, you can test the robotics functions
>> manually
>> (e.g. $ robot show robot)
>>
>>
>> Good luck!
>>
>> Kari
>>
>
> Thanks for all the details.
> This will help a lot !
> Syltrem
>
>

Regards,

Kari