IBM Europe, Middle East, and Africa Hardware
Announcement ZG14-0114
IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation
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The LTO tape drives communicate with the TS4500 tape library through an internal
Ethernet interface and use SARS to isolate failures between media and hardware.
LTO tape drives read and write non-WORM media, so you can load WORM-capable
firmware on your tape drives and use any media that is supported by these drives.
In this case, only the data that is written on WORM media is treated as WORM data.
Data that is written on other types of media can be overwritten.
LTO tape drives do not read from or write to 3592 tape cartridges, and 3592 tape
drives do not read or write to LTO tape cartridges.
The LTO tape drives can read tapes that were written by non-IBM LTO drives. They
also write to tapes that can be read by non-IBM LTO drives.
All supported generations of LTO tape drives and cartridges can reside in the same
frame.
When a cartridge is labeled according to IBM bar code label specifications, the
last character of its VOLSER number indicates the generation of the medium.
For example, a cartridge with a VOLSER of 000764L6 is an LTO 6 cartridge and a
cartridge with a VOLSER of 000764L5 is an LTO 5 cartridge.
To enhance library performance, the LTO tape drives include speed matching,
channel calibration, and power management. Speed matching dynamically adjusts
the drive's native (uncompressed) data rate to the slower data rate of a server.
Channel calibration customizes each read and write data channel for optimum
performance. The customization enables compensation for variations in the
recording channel transfer function, media characteristics, and read/write head
characteristics. Power management reduces the drive's power consumption during
idle power periods.
To ensure that your tape drive conforms to IBM specifications for reliability, use only
IBM LTO tape cartridges.
Encryption
The LTO 5 and later LTO tape drives are encryption capable, which means they
can convert data into a cipher for data security. To perform encryption, the
drive must be encryption enabled by your selection of one of three methods of
encryption management. Two of these methods, system-managed and library-
managed encryption, require the purchase of feature number 1604 (Transparent
LTO Encryption). A key is required to encrypt and decrypt the data. How a key
is generated, maintained, controlled, and transmitted depends on the operating
environment where the tape drive is installed. Some data management applications
are capable of performing key management. For an alternative solution, IBM
provides a key manager that works in conjunction with the keystore of your choice
to perform all necessary key management tasks. There is no recovery for lost
encryption keys. Also refer to the IBM Encryption Key Manager and IBM Security Key
Lifecycle Manager (formerly Tivoli Key Lifecycle Manager) publications.
3592 tape drives
The TS4500 tape library supports the TS1140 tape drive.
The TS1140 tape drive offers a dual-port Fibre Channel host attachment interface.
This feature provides flexibility in open systems environments because the drives
can directly attach to Open Systems servers with Fibre Channel attachments. All
TS1140 tape drives are encryption capable. The IBM TS1140 (Model 3592 EH7)
HD2-compatible 3592 tape drive is supported by the HD2 frames of the TS4500 tape
library.
Note:
Drive model 3592 E07 is not supported by the HD2 frames of the TS4500
tape library.
