Tivoli Storage Manager for Windows: Administrator's Guide


Defining and Managing Drives

Administrators can define, query, update, and delete drives.

Defining Drives


Task Required Privilege Class
Define drives System or unrestricted storage

To inform the server about a drive that can be used to access storage volumes, issue the DEFINE DRIVE command. |See Planning for Tape Libraries and Drives used in NDMP Operations for information about defining drives for NDMP |operations.

When issuing this command, you must provide some or all of the following information:

Library Name
The name of the library in which the drive resides.

Drive Name
The name assigned to the drive.

Device Name
The device name to be used to access the drive. For a drive in a FILE library, use the keyword FILE. FILE drives are created automatically in a FILE library when the DEFINE DEVCLASS XXXX DEVTYPE=FILE SHARED=YES command is issued.

Element Address
The element address of the drive. The ELEMENT parameter applies to SCSI libraries. The element address is a number that indicates the physical location of a drive within an automated library. TSM needs the element address to connect the physical location of the drive to the drive's SCSI address.

For example, to define a drive that belongs to the manual library named MANLIB, enter this command:

define drive manlib 8MM.0 device=mt3.0.0.0

To define a drive to an autochanger library named AUTOLIB, enter this command:

define drive autolib drive1 device=mt4.0.0.0 element=1

To define a FILE drive in an existing library named SANLIB, enter this command:

define drive sanlib san1 device=file

Requesting Information about Drives


Task Required Privilege Class
Request information about drives Any administrator

You can request information about drives by using the QUERY DRIVE command. This command accepts wildcard characters for both a library name and a drive name. See Administrator's Reference for information about using wildcard characters.

For example, to query all drives associated with your server, enter the following command:

query drive

The following shows an example of the results of this command.


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Library   Drive    Device     Device     Online                                 |
|Name      Name     Type                                                         |
|--------  -------  ---------  ---------  ------                                 |
|MANLIB    8MM.0    8MM        MT3.0.0.0  Yes                                    |
|AUTOLIB   8MM.2    8MM        MT5.0.0.0  Yes                                    |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Updating Drives


Task Required Privilege Class
Update drives System or unrestricted storage

You can change the attributes of a drive by issuing the UPDATE DRIVE command. You can change whether the drive is online or offline. You can also change the device name if you are reconfiguring your system. If the drive resides in a SCSI library, its ELEMENT attribute can be updated.

You can change a drive to offline status while the drive is in use. TSM will finish with the current tape in the drive, and then not use the drive anymore. By changing a drive to offline, you can drain work off of a drive. However, if the tape that had been in use was part of a series of tapes for a single transaction, the drive will not be available to complete the series. If no other drives are available, the transaction may fail. If all drives in a library are made offline, any attempts by TSM to write to the storage pool associated with the library will fail.

The ONLINE parameter specifies the value of the drive's online state, even if the drive is in use. ONLINE=YES indicates that the drive is available for use (online). ONLINE=NO indicates that the drive is not available for use (offline). This parameter is optional. Do not specify other optional parameters along with ONLINE=YES or ONLINE=NO. If you do, the drive will not be updated, and the command will fail when the drive is in use. This command can be issued when the drive is involved in an active process or session, but this is not recommended.

The ONLINE parameter allows drives to be taken offline and used for another activity, such as maintenance. If you make the drive offline while it is in use, the drive will be marked offline. However, the mounted volume will complete its current process. If this volume was part of a series of volumes for a given transaction, the drive will no longer be available to complete mounting the series. If no other drives are available, the active process may fail. The updated state will be retained even when the server is halted and brought up again. If a drive is marked offline when the server is brought up, a warning is issued noting that the drive must be manually brought online. If all the drives in a library are updated to be offline, processes requiring a library mountpoint will fail, rather than queue up for one.

The device name or element number for a drive cannot be updated if it is currently in use. If a drive has a volume mounted, but the volume is currently idle, it can be explicitly dismounted as described in Dismounting Idle Volumes.

For example, suppose you have a drive DRIVE3 and you want to change the element address to 119. Enter the following command:

update drive auto drive3 element=119

Deleting Drives


Task Required Privilege Class
Delete drives System or unrestricted storage

A drive cannot be deleted if it is currently in use. If a drive has a volume mounted, but the volume is currently idle, it can be dismounted as described in Auditing a Library Device's Volume Inventory.

Note:
A library cannot be deleted until all of the drives defined within it are deleted.


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