ITDT Help

Tests


Health Test

WARNING: The Health Test erases user data on the cartridge that is used for the test!

The test runs only on tape drives not on autoloaders or tape libraries.

The test can take from 5 minutes up to 2 hours. The average duration is 15 minutes.
We recommend to use a new or rarely used cartridge to run the test. Scaled (capacity-reduced) cartridges should not be used to test the device.
The test will check, if the tape device is defective and will deliver a passed/failed result.
To test tape drives within a library, the library must be in online mode.
The Health Test (button Test) contains the following steps:

The Health Test can return with the result FAILED and one of the following error codes:

STUCK TAPE Load/Unload failed, manual intervention required.
LOAD FAILED Load/Unload failed or did not complete within the given time.
POST TEST FAILED POST A step failed.
PERFORMANCE FAILED Performance thresholds exceeded during performance test.
WRITE FAILURE A write operation failed.
EC 5 Tape drive hardware problem.
EC A Tape drive hardware problem.
UNEXPECTED DATA Log Sense command or Mode Sense command failed.
POWER UP SELF TEST FAILED Hardware error occurred.
RS-422 FAILURE Tape drive or RS-422 error.

If the Health Test does not complete successfully and ends with the result ABORTED, run the Health Test again with a known good cartridge.

Full Write

WARNING: The Full Write operation erases user data on the cartridge that is used for the test!
The Full Write will take approximately 2 hours,

The Full Write runs only on tape drives not on autoloaders or tape libraries.
To perform a Full Write on tape drives within a library, the library must be in online mode.

The Full Write will write to the cartridge with a selectable block size with either compressible or incompressible data and output compression ratio and performance data.
The entire cartridge will be written to when incompressible data is chosen.

The Full Write can be used to

System Test

WARNING: The System Test operation erases user data on the cartridge that is used for the test!

The System Test runs only on tape drives not on autoloaders or tape libraries.
To perform a system test on tape drives within a library, the library must be in online mode.

The System Test is a short test that shall be used to

Library Diagnostic Selftest

The Library Diagnostic Selftest starts and monitors the library-internal self-test.

The Library Diagnostic Selftest will only run on tape libraries and autoloaders, not on tape drives.

The Library Diagnostic Selftest can fail with the result POST TEST FAILED. If the Library Diagnostic Selftest does not complete successfully and ends with the result ABORTED, clear potential library error conditions before re-starting the Library Diagnostic Selftest.

Library Media Screening

The Library Media Screening test generates dumps for each drive and cartridge within a tape library.

The Library Media Screening test will only run on tape libraries and auto-loaders, not on tape drives.

First, the test tries to read dump files from each drive installed in the tape library. After this you have to select one drive for loading the cartridges.
All cartridges of the I/O and storage slots will be moved - one after the other - from their source to the selected drive, a dump will be taken and they will be moved back to the source address.
In the result screen, the dumps taken and the count of dumps will be displayed. The naming output format is as follows:

Note: The 'Common Test Number' depends on how many tests have been done before on this device.
The first dump does not have a number. For all subsequent tests a number will be added and incremented by one.

Encryption Verification

The Encryption Verification is only supported on encryption enabled drives and requires an encryption infrastructure including the Encryption Key Manager (EKM) to be properly set up. This test shall be used to verify, if data on the cartridge was actually written encrypted. It will read both decrypted and raw data from the cartridge into two separate files on disk. You can then verify that the data differs to ensure that encryption worked.
If you receive the result ABORTED and the error code FILE IO ERROR, check for available space on the hard drive where ITDT is installed.

In a System Managed Encryption environment the IBM device driver must be installed and in use by ITDT for this test to pass, otherwise it won't be able to decrypt data and the test will terminate with the error code ENCRYPTION ERROR.

LTFS Readiness Check

The LTFS Readiness Check will analyze your operating system and tape drive environment to ensure that the IBM Linear Tape File System will be supported. This test will check the operating system version, the tape device driver version, the tape drive firmware, and the LTFS HBA (host bus adapter) requirements.

The LTFS Readiness Check requires an empty data cartridge.

The LTFS Readiness Check can return with the result FAILED and one of the following error codes:

LTFS OPERATING SYSTEM CHECK FAILED The operating system is not supported by LTFS.
LTFS CDB LENGTH FAILED 16 Bytes CDBs are not support by the HBA.
LTFS CARTRIDGE TYPE FAILED The cartridge type is not supported by LTFS.
LTFS MAX XFER SIZE FAILED Performance thresholds exceeded during performance test.
LTFS PARTITION SUPPORT FAILED Partitioning support is missing.
LTFS FIRMWARE LEVEL FAILED LTFS requires a newer tape drive firmware level.
LTFS DEVICE DRIVER LEVEL FAILED LTFS requires a newer tape device driver version.
LTFS DATA TRANSFER SIZE FAILED Data integrity tests fails.

Eject Cartridge

Eject Cartridge will unload a cartridge from a tape drive.
A "Prevent Removal" will be issued, too, in advance to the unmount command.

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