Supported tape devices and libraries

Edit online

The server can use a wide range of tape devices and libraries. Select tape devices and libraries that meet your business requirements.

For a list of supported devices and valid device class formats, see the website for your operating system:

For more information about storage devices and storage objects, see Types of storage devices.

Each device that is defined to IBM Storage Protect is associated with one device class. The device class specifies the device type and media management information, such as recording format, estimated capacity, and labeling prefixes.

A device type identifies a device as a member of a group of devices that share similar media characteristics. For example, the LTO device type applies to all generations of LTO tape drives.

A device class for a tape drive must also specify a library. A physical library is a collection of one or more drives that share similar media-mounting requirements. That is, the drive can be mounted by an operator or by an automated mounting mechanism.

A library object definition specifies the library type and other characteristics that are associated with that library type.

The following table lists the preferred library types for an IBM Storage Protect Version 8.1.6 tape solution.

Table 1. Library types for an IBM Storage Protect 8.1.6 tape solution
Library type Description More information
SCSI A SCSI library is controlled through a SCSI interface, attached either directly to the server's host by using SCSI cabling or by a storage area network. A robot or other mechanism automatically handles tape volume mounts and dismounts.
If you create different drive types for a SCSI library, you create multiple logical libraries that cannot be split between different types of drives. A SCSI library can contain drives of mixed technologies, including LTO Ultrium and digital linear tape (DLT) drives. For example:
  • The Oracle StorageTek L700 library
  • The IBM® 3592 tape device
 Configuring libraries for use by a server
Restrictions apply when you mix different generations of media and drives. For more information, see:
Shared Shared libraries are logical libraries that are represented by SCSI. The library is controlled by the IBM Storage Protect server that is configured as a library manager.

IBM Storage Protect servers that use the SHARED library type are library clients to the library manager server. Shared libraries reference a library manager.