IBM Europe, Middle East, and Africa Hardware
Announcement ZG14-0114
IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation
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IBM maintains the latest levels of tape drive and library device drivers and
documentation on the Internet. Utilize the Fix Central download portal by accessing
the following website
http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral
There are several menus to navigate to the correct download as follows:
1.On the first menu item Click
Select Product
>
Product Group
>
System
Storage®
2.Expand
Select from System Storage
>
Tape Systems
3.Expand
Select from Tape systems
>
Tape drivers and software
4.Expand
Select from Tape drivers and software
>
user product
5.Expand
Platform
>
user operating system
6.Click
Continue
to view what drivers are available
The IBM Tape Device Drivers Installation and User's Guide can be found at
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=577&uid=ssg1S7002972
IBM LTO Ultrium features enhanced in the IBM LTO Ultrium 6 Tape Drive include:
•
Independent tape loader and threader motors and positive pin retention:
These are designed to help improve the reliability of loading and unloading a
cartridge, and to retain the pin even if tension is dropped. An independent loader
motor, coupled with positive pin retention, is designed to thread the tape with a
higher level of reliability.
•
Graceful dynamic braking:
In the event of power failure, reel motors are
designed to maintain tension and gradually decelerate instead of stopping
abruptly, helping reduce tape breakage, stretching, or loose tape wraps during a
sudden power outage.
•
Servo and track layout technology:
There are 2,176 data tracks in Ultrium 6
versus 1,280 data tracks in Ultrium 5. The high-bandwidth servo system features
a low-mass servo to help more effectively track servo bands and improve data
throughput with damaged media in less-than-optimal shock and vibration
environments.
•
Surface Control Guiding Mechanism:
The patented Surface Control Guiding
Mechanism from IBM is designed to guide the tape along the tape path in the
Ultrium 6, 5, and 4 Tape Drives. This method uses the surface of the tape,
rather than the edges, to control tape motion. This helps reduce tape damage
(especially to the edges of the tape) and tape debris, which comes from the
damaged edges and can accumulate in the head area.
•
Robust drive components optimized for automation environments:
Using
some of the most robust components available, such as an all metal clutch, steel
ball bearings in loader, robust leader block design, and a single circuit card, helps
to enhance reliability and prolong the life of drives.
•
Adaptive read equalization:
This feature is designed to automatically
compensate for dynamic changes in readback signal response.
•
Dynamic amplitude asymmetry compensation:
This feature optimizes
readback signals for linear readback response from MR read head transducers.
•
Separate writing of multiple filemarks:
Separate writing of multiple
filemarks is designed to cause any write command of two or more filemarks to
cause a separate data set to be written containing all filemarks after the first.
This feature helps improve performance if a subsequent append overwrites
somewhere after the first filemark. A write of multiple filemarks typically
indicates a point where an append operation might occur after the first of these
filemarks, and this change helps prevent having to rewrite datasets containing
customer data and the first filemark, if such an append occurs.
•
LTO Data Compression (LTO-DC):
The Ultrium 6 uses LTO-DC, which is an
implementation of a Lempel-Ziv class 1 (LZ-1) data compression algorithm.
LTO-DC is an extension of Adaptive Lossless Data Compression (ALDC) and
an improvement over previous IBM lossless compression algorithms. Scheme-
