Yes, you can remove drives and control path from a logical TS3500 library that 
has volumes.

David

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Thomas Denier
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 12:14 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TS3500 test environment

I agree that we would not be able to retain a control path to
the partition when all the tape drives were gone, but that would
not in itself be a problem at times when we were not performing
tests involving tape activity. The question is whether the TS3500
firmware would allow us to remove all the drives and the control
path from a partition with tape volumes, leaving the partition
unusable until we brought back at least one tape drive.

-----"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU> wrote: -----

>To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
>From: Paul Zarnowski 
>Sent by: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" 
>Date: 01/09/2013 11:56
>Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TS3500 test environment
>
>
>On TS3500s, I believe the library control interface for a partition
>is assigned to one of the tape drives in that partition.  Thus, with
>no drives, there can be no control of the partition.  I believe the
>answer is that this is not possible - you must have at least one
>drive assigned to each partition.
>
>..Paul
>
>At 11:25 AM 1/9/2013, Thomas Denier wrote:
>>I am in the process of setting up a test environment for our Version
>6
>>TSM servers. The servers run under zSeries Linux and are currently
>at
>>the 6.2.2.0 level. The main motivation for setting up a test
>environment
>>at this time is to support an upgrade in the near future.
>>
>>Our production environment uses a TS3500 tape library with the ALMS
>>feature. We will need tape infrastructure available to the test
>>environment for some tests, but we do not wish to have any tape
>drives
>>permanently attached to the test environment. Is it possible to have
>a
>>logical library remain in existence with tape volumes assigned but
>with
>>no tape drives assigned?
>>
>>Thomas Denier
>>Thomas Jefferson University
>
>
>--
>Paul Zarnowski                            Ph: 607-255-4757
>CIT Infrastructure / Storage Services     Fx: 607-255-8521
>719 Rhodes Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-3801    Em: psz1 AT cornell DOT edu