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. 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.

If the device name is a non-TSM device name (that is, not controlled by a TSM or IBMtape device driver), perform the following steps as a precaution to see if TSM can use this drive as a GENERICTAPE type device:

  1. Insert a blank tape or an unused tape into the drive. Ensure that the tape is not write protected.

  2. As user root at a Solaris command prompt (not a TSM command prompt), issue the Solaris command:
    /usr/bin/dd if=/usr/bin/dd of={Device Name} obs=80
    

    where {Device Name} is the same as the device name in the TSM DEFINE DRIVE command.

    If you get an I/O error from the DD command, then TSM cannot use this drive as a GENERICTAPE device type.

  3. Eject the tape.

Element address
The element address of the drive. The ELEMENT parameter applies only 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. You can get the element address from this Web site: http://www.tivoli.com/tsm .

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

define drive manlib tapedrv3 device=/dev/rmt/1mt

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 output from this command.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Library   Drive    Device     Device        On Line                             |
|Name      Name     Type                                                         |
|--------  -------  ---------  --------      -------                             |
|MANLIB    8MM.0    8MM        /dev/rmt/1mt  Yes                                 |
|AUTOLIB   8MM.2    8MM        /dev/rmt/2mt  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 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 an Idle Volume. 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 Dismounting an Idle Volume.

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

Cleaning Drives


Task Required Privilege Class
Clean drives System or unrestricted storage

TSM can control cleaning tape drives in SCSI libraries and offers partial support for cleaning tape drives in manual libraries.

Note:This support is not for SCSI libraries that have their own automatic cleaning in the device hardware (for example, STK 9710, IBM 3570, and IBM 3575).

You must check a cleaner cartridge into the library's volume inventory to use this cleaning support. Use caution when checking a cleaner cartridge into a library so that you do not accidentally load it into a data cartridge drive.

Set up TSM-controlled drive cleaning with these steps:

  1. Define or update the drives in a library with the CLEANFREQUENCY parameter to determine how often you want the drive cleaned. Refer to the DEFINE DRIVE and UPDATE DRIVE commands. Consult the manuals that accompany the drives for cleaning recommendations.

  2. Check a cleaner cartridge into the library's volume inventory with the CHECKIN LIBVOLUME command. TSM will mount the cleaner cartridge in a drive when it needs cleaning.

  3. Issue the CLEAN DRIVE command when you want TSM to immediately load a cleaner cartridge into a drive regardless of the cleaning frequency.

Cleaning a drive in a manual library is the same as cleaning a drive without checking in a cleaner cartridge. No library inventory exists in a manual library, so TSM issues the ANR8914I message when a drive needs cleaning. The operator must monitor these messages and load a cleaner cartridge into the drive as needed.


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