We normally order LTO-7 “Type M” formatted tapes. We have a partial shipment came in that is only LTO-7 formatted not ‘Type-M’ (per the label, these have L7 at the end of the label), BUT the tape properties of these tapes (as seen in Commvault) say "Type" and "Format" on the media indicates ULRIUM-V8.
I want to “prove” CommVault will not have any issues with some tapes we received when it tries to write to them. Currently we now have a mix in our library of these L7 tapes and unused/half full M8 tapes, which is why I wanted to have proof by actually having CommVault pick the L7 tape and write data to it.
- I tried doing a “Verify” on the tape (not the drive) and CommVault has this in the job logs, which makes me think CommVault will not use these tapes as they may have already been Type-M formatted, but mislabeled with a LTO-7 label?
"The verify response string is [Media in library [TPO Tape Library], slot [slot 51] does not have a valid media label which means that it was not written to by this product.]"
"The following media were deleted as OML write failed .."
This makes me think the tapes were initialized as M8 already, but they put L7 labels on them
- If I so a “verify” on a tape drive, and choose one of these L7 tapes, it writes data to it and reports back throughput...
More data:
Normally, the LTO-7 “Type-M” labels on the tapes report (in CommVault) as “xxxxxxL8” as their labels, and they have something like M8 or something special on the label.
So: It appears that to be/have a legitimate “type M” LTO-7 tape, the tape needs to be initialized as type M via putting a M8 label on it… and maybe something else (the system initializes it when it first uses it?)? But: if the LT0-7 tape has an L7 label on it… why is it identifying as ULRIUM-V8… and can I actually write data to these if CommVault were to use them? I’m aware that LTO-7 can handle 6 TB and LT0-Type M can handle 9 TB, so if we can use them it would be a loss of 3 TB/tape. I assume if the label says L7, the tape should not be identifying as ULRIUM-V8, and since there is an L7 label applied as we cannot change it to Type M formatting without ripping the label off and applying M8 labels.
I’m going to see if i can get these L7 tapes exchanged, but if we cannot (or it takes too long and we have to use some) that we can actually sue them without issues.