SDLT 220 and SDLT 320 Product Manual
CHAPTER 5: Using Your Tape Drive
81-85002-01
March 2004
5-13
5.6
Density Selection
This section describes the SDLT drive’s density select features. Density selection
is a feature that enables you to specify that your SDLT 320 tape drive write data
cartridges that are backward compatible with your SDLT 220 tape drives. For
example, if you load a new Super DLTtape I data cartridge in the tape drive and
use a commercially available backup utility, your SDLT 320 tape drive writes data
in SDLT 320 format. However, by using Density Select to specify SDLT 220
format, the SDLT 320 tape drive reads and writes data in that format, enabling
SDLT 220 tape drives to read the data cartridge.
5.6.1 Selecting Tape Density
Selecting Density via the Host over the SCSI Bus
1.
Use the SCSI MODE SELECT command to indicate the desired density.
N
OTE
: Any of the following events cause the drive to revert to its
default density: loading a new data cartridge, power on
reset, bus reset, and bus device reset.
2.
Write data to the tape from BOT.
When writing from BOT, tape density may be changed by using the operating
system to issue a density designation, or override. In this case, the amber Drive
Density LED on the tape drive’s front panel behaves as shown in
Table 5-4 on
page 5-16
, indicating an automatic or host density selection.
N
OTE
: On all READ and all WRITE APPEND operations, the
data density that already exists on the tape cartridge
remains the density.
Summary of Contents for DLTtape SDLT 220
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