Programmable Early Warning (PEW)

With the tape parameter, the application is allowed to request the tape drive to create a zone that is called the programmable early warning zone (PEWZ) in front of Early Warning (EW).

This parameter establishes the programmable early warning zone size. It is a 2-byte numerical value that specifies how many MB before the standard end-of-medium early warning zone to place the programmable early warning indicator. If the value is set to a positive integer, a user application is warned that the tape is running out of space when the tape head reaches the PEW location. If pew is set to 0, then there is no early warning zone and the user is notified only at the standard early warning location.