XenData Limited XenData6, User Manual, Page: 32 / 56

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5. Tape Catalogs and Finalization
5.1 About Tape Catalogs
A Tape Catalog contains the contents of a specific LTO tape cartridge. In XenData documentation, it is
termed either a 'Tape Contents Catalog' or a 'Tape Catalog' for short.
When a tape is formatted using XenData6 Workstation, tape catalog data is created for it which stored in
the following folder: c:\ProgramData\XenData\catalogs\. As files are written to a tape, its Tape Catalog is
updated. When a tape is
finalized (5.3) , a copy of the Tape Catalog is written to the end of the tape.
The presence of a Tape Catalog greatly reduces the time to move a tape from one XenData system to
another. When a tape containing a Tape Catalog is moved to a new system for the first time, the Tape
Catalog is read and the catalog data is automatically stored on the new system.
This means that there is no need to perform a
Build Catalog (5.2) operation which can take several hours.
5.2 Build and Rebuild Catalog
A Tape Catalog (5.1) is automatically written to the end of a tape when it is finalized (5.3) . If a finalized tape
is moved to another XenData system for the first time, the tape catalog is automatically read by the system
and the tape catalog data is automatically stored on the c: drive of the system. However, if the tape has not
been finalized, the tape catalog data must be built by scanning the tape. This is performed by using the
Build Catalog operation.
If a tape that the system already knows about has been updated by writing, deleting or renaming one or
more additional files on another system, the tape catalog must be rebuilt using the Rebuild Catalog
operation.