Tivoli Storage Manager for Windows Administrator's Guide


Chapter 7. Defining Device Classes

A device class represents a device type that can be used by TSM. TSM uses the device class to determine which device and storage volume type to use to:

One device class can be associated with multiple storage pools. Each storage pool is associated with only one device class.

Each device class is characterized by its device type, which indicates the type of storage volumes that are used to store data.

For random access storage, TSM supports only the DISK device class. The DISK device class is predefined by TSM. However, you can define many storage pools associated with the DISK device class.

For sequential access storage, TSM supports the following device types:

3570 IBM 3570 cartridge tape devices
3590 IBM 3590 tape drives
4MM 4mm tape drives, such as IBM 7206-005
8MM 8mm tape drives, such as IBM 7208-001 and 7208-011
DLT Digital linear tape (DLT) drives
DTF Digital tape format
FILE Storage volumes that are files in the file system of the server machine
GENERICTAPE Tape drives supported by a Windows NT tape device driver.
OPTICAL Optical drives that use 5.25-inch rewritable optical cartridges
QIC Quarter-inch cartridge tape drives, such as the IBM 7207
REMOVABLEFILE Removable media devices that are attached as local, removable file systems (for example, Iomega Zip or Jaz drives, or CDROM media)
SERVER Storage volumes that are actually files archived in the server storage of another TSM server (a target server)
WORM Optical drives that use 5.25-inch write-once read-many optical cartridges

See the following sections:

Tasks:
"Defining and Updating Device Classes for Tape Devices"
"Defining and Updating Device Classes for Generic Tape Devices"
"Defining and Updating Device Classes for Optical Devices"
"Defining and Updating Device Classes for Removable File System Devices"
"Defining and Updating FILE Device Classes"
"Defining and Updating SERVER Device Classes"
"Requesting Information about a Device Class"
"How TSM Fills Volumes"
"Deleting a Device Class"

In this chapter, most examples illustrate how to perform tasks by using the TSM command line interface. For information about the TSM commands, see Administrator's Reference, or issue the HELP command from the command line of a TSM administrative client.

All of the TSM commands can be performed from the administrative Web interface. For more information about using the administrative interface, see Quick Start.


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