I don't know if this is a real problem or not, but I've read..... Tape venders really, now, only create tapes for the tripple density models. If a tape doesn't validate for tripple density, it is tried at double density, and if it doesn't validate for that density, it is tried for single density. Now a days, there shouldn't be many new tapes that couldn't validate for tripple density. So when you want a single density tape, most likely you will get a tripple density tape, labeled for single density.
Now, when you init a single density tape for tripple density, be prepared for "some" problems. Again, I don't know if when you init a single density tape to tripple density, will the entire tape be validated or not. If so, great! You can get rid of the bad tapes before you ever use them. If not, then you may have problems with those tapes which may not show up until you use all the tape. At $30 some odd dollars per tape, I would definitely try to reuse them. Hopefully, you bought good quality tapes to begin with and that they are not too old (i.e. back in the days when they only made single density tapes). I would really like to hear about the results of the density conversion. How well it went. Any type of weird procedures, etc. I think many shops may be looking at such a conversion and don't want to replace all their media. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1/8/2007 11:31 AM >>> Mark, That makes more sense (generally "3590-Js" are really the initial 3592 tape drives ... before the E05s came out ... and they use 3592 media (ETC), not 3590 media (HPT)). You will be able to *READ* any data previously written to your cartridges by the 3590-B1As on your 3590-H1As. However, you can *not* append any data to a cartridge initialized on a B1A using your H1As. So you should be able to read your existing saved data using the new drives. Your assessment was correct. After the cartridges previously initialized on B1As go scratch, you will need to re-initialize them at the "higher" H1A density before they can be written to using the H1A drives. JR (Steven) Imler CA Senior Software Engineer Tel: +1 703 708 3479 Fax: +1 703 708 3267 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________ From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Pace Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 12:09 PM To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU Subject: Re: 3590J to 3590H I should clarify this a little better. We are moving from 3590-B1A drives to 3590-H1A drives. The tapes are the J length. On 1/8/07, Mark Pace <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: We are about to replace out 3590-J tape drives with 3590-H models. I am curious as to how to convert to using the deeper density of the 3590-H on our existing tapes. I'm guessing that it is simply re-initializing our scratch tapes with the new drives. As for the tapes that a currently in use, I guess I will wait for them to go to scratch and then re-init. -- Mark Pace Mainline Information Systems -- Mark Pace Mainline Information Systems
