PRTERRLOG *VOLSTAT

[D.BALE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Trying to make sense of tape volume errors shown on the PRTERRLOG *VOLSTAT
report.

What is the difference between a temporary error and a permanent error?  When
any error occurs, does the system retry the operation 'n' times before it
becomes a permanent error?  Otherwise, if a retry is successful, it is
recorded as a temporary error?

And, if you find a volume with only one permanent error, should you
automatically replace it with a new tape?

Not much in the way of interpreting these numbers, except the following
extremely helpful IBM documentation:

<snip> "you can determine which tapes have excessive read or write errors and
should be removed from the media library."

Can somebody define "excessive"?

Also, the following text appears at the bottom of each report:
>> indicates media replacement is recommended
 > indicates media replacement criteria should be checked

I have never seen the single '>' used on any of the reports for any of our
AS/400s, even though some show seemingly high number of errors.  (Not once
have I seen the '>>' used.)  The exception:

                          Print Lifetime Statistics
Removable media . . . . . . :   8-mm cartridge tape
Volume   -Temporary Error-   --Perm Error--  -----K Bytes-----
ID          Read    Write     Read   Write     Read    Written
DEVSEC       280        0        0       0     2976          1
BACKUP >     167    23222        0       0        7    1046969
TAP001       853  4158143        0      19    46703  563113204

Interesting, isn't it, that the volume BACKUP is tagged for checking the
replacement criteria, whereas volume TAP001 has much more worrisome stats.

Is there documentation for any of this?  Is the "criteria" user-defined?  If a
'>>' ever does pop up, is there any message that can be monitored in my backup
job so that I don't have to run the PRTERRLOG *VOLSTAT every day?

TIA.

- Dan
Dan Bale says "BAN DALE!"
IT - AS/400
Handleman Company
248-362-4400  Ext. 4952
D.Bale@Handleman.com
  Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
  (Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)
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