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I'm having trouble with REV at one customer.

If this were the ONLY REV drive I had out there, I'd be pretty down on
REV, but everywhere else we have them they work great.

History here: first rev had intermittent failures. This is SCSI on a
Unix box, using Microlite Edge. They and I looked everything over,
checking cabling, termination, media, everything.. finally decided the
drive itself had to be bad, and replaced it. Things got better for
quite a while - more than a year, all was fine.

But now intermittent failures again. Does not seem to be media, and
exact failure varies - very random. I'm feeling like it must be the
drive, but sheesh: I've had no failures at other sites, so I'm almost
seeing REV's as "never worry" devices - except this one.

There's no cleaning, right? I've been through everything with the
Microlite folks; they see nothing. I really think I'm back to blaming
the hardware again but it just seems very suspicious. And of course
it's out of warranty now..

Just wondering: is everyone else's REV experience generally good?

Tony Lawrence wrote:
> I'm having trouble with REV at one customer.
>
> If this were the ONLY REV drive I had out there, I'd be pretty down on
> REV, but everywhere else we have them they work great.
>
> History here: first rev had intermittent failures. This is SCSI on a
> Unix box, using Microlite Edge. They and I looked everything over,
> checking cabling, termination, media, everything.. finally decided the
> drive itself had to be bad, and replaced it. Things got better for
> quite a while - more than a year, all was fine.
>
> But now intermittent failures again. Does not seem to be media, and
> exact failure varies - very random. I'm feeling like it must be the
> drive, but sheesh: I've had no failures at other sites, so I'm almost
> seeing REV's as "never worry" devices - except this one.
>
> There's no cleaning, right? I've been through everything with the
> Microlite folks; they see nothing. I really think I'm back to blaming
> the hardware again but it just seems very suspicious. And of course
> it's out of warranty now..
>
> Just wondering: is everyone else's REV experience generally good?

Tony;
I have no REV experience at all but I had a couple of thoughts about
items you haven't mentioned:
1. Power, marginal power supply or high resistance power connection to
the device?
2. Signal, connector on the SCSI cable has an unreliable connection
pin(s) or other
non obvious problem?

I once had a machine with SCSI hard drive errors. I replaced the
drive, replaced the
controller, even replaced the terminator. Finally Sherlock set in and
I replaced the
signal cable. Problem solved. I still don't know why but drive and
controller went to spare parts and the cable went to the dump.
Regards...Dan.

jdanskinner wrote:
> Tony Lawrence wrote:
> > I'm having trouble with REV at one customer.
> >
> > If this were the ONLY REV drive I had out there, I'd be pretty down on
> > REV, but everywhere else we have them they work great.
> >
> > History here: first rev had intermittent failures. This is SCSI on a
> > Unix box, using Microlite Edge. They and I looked everything over,
> > checking cabling, termination, media, everything.. finally decided the
> > drive itself had to be bad, and replaced it. Things got better for
> > quite a while - more than a year, all was fine.
> >
> > But now intermittent failures again. Does not seem to be media, and
> > exact failure varies - very random. I'm feeling like it must be the
> > drive, but sheesh: I've had no failures at other sites, so I'm almost
> > seeing REV's as "never worry" devices - except this one.
> >
> > There's no cleaning, right? I've been through everything with the
> > Microlite folks; they see nothing. I really think I'm back to blaming
> > the hardware again but it just seems very suspicious. And of course
> > it's out of warranty now..
> >
> > Just wondering: is everyone else's REV experience generally good?
>
> Tony;
> I have no REV experience at all but I had a couple of thoughts about
> items you haven't mentioned:
> 1. Power, marginal power supply or high resistance power connection to
> the device?
> 2. Signal, connector on the SCSI cable has an unreliable connection
> pin(s) or other
> non obvious problem?
>
> I once had a machine with SCSI hard drive errors. I replaced the
> drive, replaced the
> controller, even replaced the terminator. Finally Sherlock set in and
> I replaced the
> signal cable. Problem solved. I still don't know why but drive and
> controller went to spare parts and the cable went to the dump.
> Regards...Dan.

Well, we went through all that last time and as I said, it's been fine
for more than a year.

But I suppose I do need to go in and check it all out again.. can't
hurt to throw in new cables and terminators.

Tony Lawrence typed (on Fri, Jul 07, 2006 at 06:37:45AM -0700):
| I'm having trouble with REV at one customer.
|
| If this were the ONLY REV drive I had out there, I'd be pretty down on
| REV, but everywhere else we have them they work great.
|
| History here: first rev had intermittent failures. This is SCSI on a
| Unix box, using Microlite Edge. They and I looked everything over,
| checking cabling, termination, media, everything.. finally decided the
| drive itself had to be bad, and replaced it. Things got better for
| quite a while - more than a year, all was fine.
|
| But now intermittent failures again. Does not seem to be media, and
| exact failure varies - very random. I'm feeling like it must be the
| drive, but sheesh: I've had no failures at other sites, so I'm almost
| seeing REV's as "never worry" devices - except this one.
|
| There's no cleaning, right? I've been through everything with the
| Microlite folks; they see nothing. I really think I'm back to blaming
| the hardware again but it just seems very suspicious. And of course
| it's out of warranty now..
|
| Just wondering: is everyone else's REV experience generally good?

I was having fine backups for a long time, but in the last two weeks,
Backups complete fine while Verifies crap out, always after reading
~20000 files. This is the latest B/E release on OSR 6.0.0. I also have
been sending debugging info to Microlite, and they've not identified
what's going wrong. New media haven't helped; I've not opened the box
to check or reseat cabling.

--
JP
==> http://www.frappr.com/cusm <==

"Tony Lawrence" <pcunix@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1152279465.686226.71730@k73g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
> I'm having trouble with REV at one customer.
>
> If this were the ONLY REV drive I had out there, I'd be pretty down on
> REV, but everywhere else we have them they work great.
>
> History here: first rev had intermittent failures. This is SCSI on a
> Unix box, using Microlite Edge. They and I looked everything over,
> checking cabling, termination, media, everything.. finally decided the
> drive itself had to be bad, and replaced it. Things got better for
> quite a while - more than a year, all was fine.
>
> But now intermittent failures again. Does not seem to be media, and
> exact failure varies - very random. I'm feeling like it must be the
> drive, but sheesh: I've had no failures at other sites, so I'm almost
> seeing REV's as "never worry" devices - except this one.
>
> There's no cleaning, right? I've been through everything with the
> Microlite folks; they see nothing. I really think I'm back to blaming
> the hardware again but it just seems very suspicious. And of course
> it's out of warranty now..
>
> Just wondering: is everyone else's REV experience generally good?
>

I think BackupEdge is crap with REV drives (too many bad experiences)....
Get LoneTar instead. It's flawless with REV drives. Download a trial
version and you'll see what I mean. Also technical support is more user
friendly, you talk to the main programmer the first time you talk to
someone. Don't need to escalate to the next level. Just my 2 cents.

"Tony Lawrence" <pcunix@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1152279465.686226.71730@k73g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
> I'm having trouble with REV at one customer.
>
> If this were the ONLY REV drive I had out there, I'd be pretty down on
> REV, but everywhere else we have them they work great.
>
> History here: first rev had intermittent failures. This is SCSI on a
> Unix box, using Microlite Edge. They and I looked everything over,
> checking cabling, termination, media, everything.. finally decided the
> drive itself had to be bad, and replaced it. Things got better for
> quite a while - more than a year, all was fine.
>
> But now intermittent failures again. Does not seem to be media, and
> exact failure varies - very random. I'm feeling like it must be the
> drive, but sheesh: I've had no failures at other sites, so I'm almost
> seeing REV's as "never worry" devices - except this one.
>
> There's no cleaning, right? I've been through everything with the
> Microlite folks; they see nothing. I really think I'm back to blaming
> the hardware again but it just seems very suspicious. And of course
> it's out of warranty now..
>
> Just wondering: is everyone else's REV experience generally good?
>

You didn't mention how it was failing (read/write errors, not responding
to SCSI commands, etc.), but the fact that the replacement worked for
so long indicates that it's probably environmental. Is this an internal or
external drive?

Perhaps the new cleaning lady is very thorough when
she vacuums around the computer room. Perhaps an employee has
a curious child that wants to see inside the drive or cartridge. Perhaps
the drive is installed near or above a hot hard disk drive or other
component. Perhaps the REV isn't as impervious to dust as they
claim it to be.

If you're really curious, and have cooperative clients,
give another client the new drive and borrow their drive that had
been working well for ages, and see where the problems follow.

Please note that the current REV firmware is 22.b according to the
Iomega website.

Bob

On 7 Jul 2006 06:37:45 -0700, "Tony Lawrence" <pcunix@gmail.com>
wrote:

>I'm having trouble with REV at one customer.
>
>If this were the ONLY REV drive I had out there, I'd be pretty down on
>REV, but everywhere else we have them they work great.
>
>History here: first rev had intermittent failures. This is SCSI on a
>Unix box, using Microlite Edge. They and I looked everything over,
>checking cabling, termination, media, everything.. finally decided the
>drive itself had to be bad, and replaced it. Things got better for
>quite a while - more than a year, all was fine.
>
>But now intermittent failures again. Does not seem to be media, and
>exact failure varies - very random. I'm feeling like it must be the
>drive, but sheesh: I've had no failures at other sites, so I'm almost
>seeing REV's as "never worry" devices - except this one.
>
>There's no cleaning, right? I've been through everything with the
>Microlite folks; they see nothing. I really think I'm back to blaming
>the hardware again but it just seems very suspicious. And of course
>it's out of warranty now..
>
>Just wondering: is everyone else's REV experience generally good?
>

Tony,

We have about 400 REV drives (USB version) out in the field. They've
been doing daily backups for a little over a year using Lone Tar.
Failure rates for both the drives and the cartridges is running
between 1%-2%. Due to a lengthy purchasing and fielding process, the
warranty on the REVs were expired by the time they were put into use.
We bought extra units as a self-insured ploy and are hoping to get
through another 3-4 years without getting hit by geometrically
increasing failure rates as the equipment ages. So far, so good and we
are very satisfied with the REV drives. I guess I'd be remiss if I
didn't point out our previous backup device was the Travan tape drive
so anything would have been an improvement.

DDinAZ