3590 Tape performance

[Guest.Visitor]

Jim, We were thinking about upgrading to the "E" model also but found that we would have to purchase special 3590 tapes to gain the performance. Have you heard anything about that? Scott

[Guest.Visitor]

It depends on what you mean by 'performance'. If you want increased capacity then you have to get the special tapes. Our problem has to do with save performance. We were hoping to achieve rates of up to 50% faster with the 3590E upgrade. Instead, we remained approximately the same. For instance, option 21 times remained virtually the same. Our tapes have been formatted to the 256 track density so we don't think that is the issue and the old B11 was a SCSI-2 interface, not Ultra. Jim

[Guest.Visitor]

The normal tapes are with blue marks ..To use the best optimum performance use the tapes with green mark on them

[Guest.Visitor]

Do you mean that to achieve the best save performance, not capacity, that one has to use the blue mark tapes? I thought that they were only if you wanted to achieve the most capacity. Jim

[Guest.Visitor]

Well I am going to upgrade after this should I?

[Guest.Visitor]

We recently upgraded to a 3590 E11 from a 3590 B11. This was done on both a 620 and 730 using adapters 2729 and 6534 respectively. We have experienced very little if any performance gains in the save processes. Optimum blocking is being used and the cartridges are being formatted for 3590E. Does anyone have any thoughts on this one? Jim

[Guest.Visitor]

Are you pondering the question 'should I upgrade my 3590 B11?'. It all depends on your environment now. If you have the Ultra SCSI feature already, you won't see much improvement unless you are looking for a higher density tape medium to store more data. If you are using a 2729 adapter then you won't see much improvement. Card placement is very important as is using optimum blocking. Saving larger files seems to work more efficiently with the new drive as opposed to saving lots of little ones. Larger AS/400s seem to do better with this drive than the smaller ones, although we saw little improvement on a 730. We seem to be doing everything right but we just have not seen any dramatic changes to justify the price of the upgrade. Your mileage may vary..... Jim