Preparing removable media

Edit online

You must prepare removable media before it can be used to store data. Typical preparation tasks include labeling and checking in volumes.

About this task

When IBM Storage Protect accesses a removable media volume, it verifies the volume name in the label header to ensure that the correct volume is accessed.

Tape volumes must be labeled before the server can use them.

Procedure

To prepare a volume for use, complete the following steps:

  1. Label the volume by issuing the LABEL LIBVOLUME command.
  2. For automated libraries, check the volume into the library. For instructions, see Checking volumes into an automated library,
    Tip: When you use the LABEL LIBVOLUME command with drives in an automated library, you can label and check in the volumes with one command.
  3. If the storage pool cannot contain scratch volumes (MAXSCRATCH=0), identify the volume to IBM Storage Protect by name so that the volume can be accessed later.

    If the storage pool can contain scratch volumes (MAXSCRATCH is set to a non-zero value), skip this step.