Data access using the IBM Spectrum Archive index

How to access data on a medium using the IBM Spectrum® Archive index.

IBM Spectrum Archive Library Edition is an application that presents a tape medium as if it were a file system on a disk drive. Standard operating system facilities and other applications can access the data using standard file system calls.

See the topic Supported tape drives and media for the tape drives that IBM Spectrum Archive Library Edition supports. IBM Spectrum Archive relies on the capability of the supported tape drives to handle partitioned tape media. IBM Spectrum Archive operates the tape media using two partitions: the index partition containing the file system metadata, or index data, and the partition containing the file content itself. Figure 1 shows data from the index partition being read into main memory. Figure 2 shows index data in main memory being used to access files on the data partition. The index partition also can be used as cache for quick access to specific files, as determined by the user during formatting.

Figure 1. Index partition data being read into main memory

Figure 2. Index data in main memory being used to access files in the data partition

In Linux® and Windows environments, the IBM Spectrum Archive Library Edition leadm tape format command is used to format media. The leadm tape recover command is used to recover media from an inconsistent state. For more information, see Formatting a medium in the library and Recovering or rolling back a medium in the library.