Hi

>I don't know of any way to do this.  Unlike disks which often have OS
>level or application level multipathing support, tapes don't tend to.  

True.  The only exception I've found is in IBM's driver for its Ultrium LTO
tape drives.  See
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/dlsearch.wss?rs=543&tc=STCVQ6R&dc=D430 for the
drivers (for several operating systems), and the documentation.

Note, however, that the multipathing feature can cause system crashes on
Windows systems.  In fact, I just tried to download the driver for Windows
2003, and see that v6.0.8.2 is current.  I know that, for Windows,
multi-pathing support was introduced in the v6.1.0.9 driver.

Here's a snippet from
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/storage/devdrvr/Windows/Win2003/Latest/IBMTape.W2
00x.Readme.txt:

1) IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT VERSION 6.1.2.30 OF THE TAPE DRIVER:
   This driver is being released as an engineering build, which means it has
not been formally
   qualified.  This driver will likely not be formally qualified, but a
later driver level will be.
   This driver includes possible fixes for the Windows system crashes
encountered with Versions 6.1.0.9
   and 6.1.1.2 (see Item 2).

2) ATTENTION:  Some users of Versions 6.1.0.9 and 6.1.1.2 of the device
driver are experiencing
   Windows system crashes.  It is strongly recommended that Version 6.0.8.2
be installed.  However,
   if support for data path failover and/or the 3576 Library is absolutely
required, please install
   Version 6.1.2.30.

I wish multi-pathing support was available for tape devices!

Hope this helps.
tl

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