Read/write operations to volumes with logical block protection
Read/write operations to empty or filling volumes depend on whether the volumes have logical block protection. Protected and unprotected data blocks cannot be mixed on the same volume.
If you use the UPDATE DEVCLASS command to change the setting for logical block protection, the change applies only to empty volumes. Filling and full volumes maintain their status of logical block protection until they are empty and ready to be refilled.
For example, suppose that you change the value of the LBPROTECT parameter from READWRITE to NO. If the server selects a volume that is associated with the device class and that has logical block protection, the server continues writing protected data to the volume.
Tips:
- If a drive does not support logical block protection, volumes with logical block protection for write operations cannot be mounted. To prevent the server from mounting the protected volumes for write operations, change the volume access to read-only. Also, disable logical block protection to prevent the server from enabling the feature on the tape drive.
- If a drive does not support logical block protection, and logical block protection is disabled, the server reads data from protected volumes. However, the data is not validated by the server and the tape drive.