LTO9 initialization

[vegivamp]

Hullo ladies, gents and enby friends,

I'm wondering how people handle LTO9 intialization

I'm aware that IBM has recently added some verbs for it to ITDT, and iirc the IBM TS libraries have the option in the interface as well, but those of us with other vendors are screwed, right? Not to mention that intiialization outside of TSM is going to get in the way of TSM operations...

I've already played with LABEL LIBVOLUME, and that does actually work - I was afraid it'd timeout, but it doesn't. However, it's limited to a single thread, and the label command gets in the way of any checkin, checkout or move drm operations; even on other libraries than the one the label is running on.

AUTOLABEL on storagepools isn't really an option, because it means that every time a new scratch tape is loaded, the write operation hangs for an hour while the volume intitializes.

You'd think that three years after the release of LTO9, vendors (and IBM/TSM in particular!) would have caught up...

/Johan

 

[smajl]

Label libvolume writes some little data at the beginning of each tape, so each tape needs to be mounted in a drive. You need to do it only once when you are inserting new tapes into library.
Autolabel does only make sense when using VTL as virtual library is able to release space used previously by said tape.
What exactly are you expecting from “initialization of LTO9”?

 

[zockinger]

LTO9 is different, those Tapes need a "media initialization" and that takes quite some time
see here
IBM Tape Storage Community

 

[vegivamp]

Label libvolume writes some little data at the beginning of each tape, so each tape needs to be mounted in a drive. You need to do it only once when you are inserting new tapes into library.
Autolabel does only make sense when using VTL as virtual library is able to release space used previously by said tape.
What exactly are you expecting from “initialization of LTO9”?

As @zockinger already mentioned, LTO9 has to be initialized before you can use it. This is not exactly new, it's been known from well before it was introduced almost three years ago. LTO10 will be the same (and going to 64 channel heads), and very likely every new generation for the foreseeable future. SpectraLogic sells pre-initialized tapes (at 10-15% markup); but the LTO9 spec does recommend you initialize the tapes in your own library for best results.

Your side comment about autolabel only being useful for VTL is also nonsense. It's a very common option on physical libraries for the very simple reason that it saves you from having to run a manual, serial label process - it just happens automatically whenever a volume is first mounted, and takes barely any time... until LTO9, where before the labelling can happen the tape will first be initialized by the drive.

So, "what I'm expecting from initialization of LTO9" is to be able to use the bloody media. Now, did you have something that helps with that?