Re: Can LTO ULTRIUM5 tapes be initialized to *ULTRIUM4 on an 8202-E4C POWER7?

I missed the beginning of this thread but Jim is right. An LTO5 tape is, well, an LTO5 tape. You cannot initialize it to LTO4 because of the headers Jim refers to but ALSO because the servo tracks are written by the manufacturer and they are different between LTO variants. LTO4 for example has 896 tracks while LTO5 has 1280 of them. LTO5 also supports LTFS which allows tape partitioning.

ALSO: Remember that bulk erasing LTO tapes, because it also erases those factory servo tracks, has the complimentary effect of turning them into small lightweight plastic bricks.

Commonly ignored is that there is a memory chip in each cartridge that contains 4K (LTO1,2,3) or 8K (LTO4+) of memory which contains information about the cartridge (cleaning cartridges included!) This chip is read by RF which is why you don't see it or any connections to it. It contains the things like the cartridge type as well as the number of uses etc. The drive reads this chip as soon as it is installed also preventing the LTO5 tape from being used as an LTO4.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis


On 12/15/2012 9:03 AM, Jim Oberholtzer wrote:

I don't think you can initialize an LTO5 tape to LTO4 standards, you
have to use the correct cartridge for the tape density. The tape device
being an internal sled or one that is in a tape library has no real
bearing on it. The tape header which is written at the factory (and I
don't think can be overwritten) determines the density of the tape. The
color of the cartridge is for humans.

For grins I tried in on my 3573, and had the same result. Even tried it
with LTO3 and LTO2. Same thing, no joy.

Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


On 12/14/2012 5:20 PM, Eric Lehti wrote:

Do you have a POWER7 8202-E4C with the integrated single-unit tape unit
that is LTO Ultrium5?
Can you run this test for me?

Insert one of your Ultrium5 tapes.
Try to INZTAP with parm DENSITY(*ULTRIUM4) instead of *DEVTYPE.

Does it allow you to initialize your LTO Ultrium5 tape to *ULTRIUM4?

I will soon need to purchase a bunch of new tapes and have yet not
decided whether to purchase Ultrium5 or Ultrium4.

I am able to continue using our old Ultrium4 tapes because I changed
INZTAP command default from *DEVTYPE to *ULTRIUM4. (We were
previously on a 8203 POWER6 machine)

Tape capacity is not much of a consideration because we need only one
Ultrium4 tapes for a full backup.

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