Tape drives
The TS4500 tape library supports LTO and 3592 tape drives.
In a single accessor library, up to 12 drives can be installed in an Lx5 or Dx5 frame that is in frame position 1 (the leftmost frame) of the library. Also, up to 16 drives can be installed in each Lx5 or Dx5 frame that is in frame position 2 or higher.
No drives are installed in the storage-only frames (Models S25 and S55). You can identify a drive by examining the logo at the front of the drive canister or by inspecting the label at the rear of the drive canister.
You or your IBM® service representative can update firmware for the tape drives without scheduling downtime. This function is available through the TS4500 management GUI or TS4500 command line interface (driveCodeUpdate command).