Imation LTO Tape Library Performance Scan

Benefits of Imation Performance Scan Service

• Proactively manage your library to improve your operational efficiencies and help eliminate failed backups or production jobs.
• Prevent smaller issues from escalating to critical problems.
• Demonstrate the rationale neccessary to justify a tape retirement program.
• The service is not intrusive to your company's data.

The scanning process can identify cartridges for retirement, potential suspect performance cartridges and tape drive anomalies. The data analysis will provide a cartridge and drive usage profile along with root cause identification of existing performance issues. Testing results and subsequent consultation will give you the information and rationale you need to properly maintain your tape library and enable you to implement a successful tape retirement strategy for LTO Ultrium™ media.

• Imation has developed a proprietary system that allows us to extract data from the LTO tape cartridge memory chip, analyze the data that we extract and then provide a customer-friendly report containing data and recommendations about your LTO system performance.
• Imation will come on site to perform this scanning service and will review the results of this service either in person or via a conference call to allow for questions and issue resolution.

Performance Scan Goals

Imation's LTO Library Performance Scan service provides a point in time analysis of the relative performance of your LTO subsystem — tape drives and media. It helps identify:

• Tape cartridges that have exceeded usage specifications and should be retired
• Tape cartridges that are resulting in read / write errors that should be removed
• Tape drive anomalies that could be causing or contributing to errors, failed backups or other issues
• Tape cartridge and drive usage patterns to allow customers to better balance tape drive / cartridge workloads
• Comparative tape cartridge and drive performance by vendor
• The root cause of challenging performance issues — for instance, consistent data errors in specific locations of the tape pack are indicative of rough handling issues.

Technology Background

The scanning device extracts metrics from the memory chip to better understand the performance of each cartridge in its environment. The usage information (memory chip pages) contains the last four mounts that each cartridge has seen on the drive, end-of-data (EOD) status and EOD parametric data such as unrecoverable write errors or read errors. The data is then mapped out and analyzed by an Imation technical service engineer to prepare and consult with each customer on recommendations for tape retirement or to identify drive performance implications.

Compatible system configurations for Imation's Performance Scan Service

• Any customer using LTO Ultrium technology can utilize Imation's Performance Scan service.
• Imation's Performance Scan service can be performed on all media brands, all drive vendors and across all generations of LTO Ultrium technology.
• At this time, Imation's Performance Scan service is only compatible with LTO Ultriumm technology.