Wanda Prather wrote:

TSM doesn't know anything about the technology level of the media just
because you are using the 8 digits.  TSM doesn't care, in fact. If it
did, it wouldn't be happy sticking an LTO2 cartridge into an LTO3
drive (which is a legitimate thing to do).

The LIBRARY uses the last 2 digits, I think, to prevent sticking an
LTO3 tape into an LTO2 drive (which is not a legitimate thing to do).
But it does that even if TSM is only using the 1st 6 digits.

I've got customers who use 8 digits, and customers who use 6. The only
reason I can think of that you would NEED the 8 digit barcodes, is if
you wanted to mix LTO2 carts and LTO3 carts in the library AND have
both sets of tapes have the same VOLSERs (but that way lies madness....)

Oh, this is embarrassing. Could someone, perhaps from ADSM development,
explain Technote 1212111, please? It says explicitly that

   Different generations of media are identified by the trailing 2
   barcode characters of an 8-character external barcode. When only 6
   barcode characters are used, it is not clear what type a media is.

It occurred to me over lunch that I would also have to deal with storage
pool members having six character volume labels but TSM suddenly seeing
library volumes with those six characters plus that "trailing 2 barcode
characters."

Live and learn, I guess.

Thanks,
Nick

> Our TS 3500 tape library can be configured to report volume labels as
> six digits or eight. We've used six digit identifiers all along, but as
> I read materials on mixing LTO drive (and tape) levels in the same
> partition, I suspect we should have gone to eight volume labels all
> along so TSM has the indicators of a tape's technology level.
>
> If I tell the TS 3500 to start reporting volume labels as eight digit
> labels, are all of my tapes with six digit internal labels suddenly
> going to be useless? Or does TSM accept a six-digit label written on
the
> tape itself if it matches the first six characters of the external
label?
>
> Hoping for a pleasant surprise,
> Nick
>