Announcing DLT8000 Differential Tape Support on MPE/iX

Software Requirements

Customers wishing to use this new DLT device must be running on either MPE/iX 5.5 or 6.0 (and later releases):

MPEKXU0 allows the software device driver to recognize the vendor ID or the support of the DLT8000.

The DLT8000 is not supported by Predictive.

Hardware Requirements

On HP 3000 S900 systems F/W SCSI Device Support is typically provided via the 28696A NIO F/W SCSI Device Adapter Card. At the time this article was written there are two other possible F/W SCSI Device Adapter Cards. NEITHER of these connection options is actually supported:

Physical connection of these devices is accomplished via Fast/Wide/Differential SCSI Cables such as C2911A, C2924A, C2925A, C2905A, C2911A, C2924A etc.

	NOTE: While DLT Libraries are available for purchase, support for these devices is very limited on HP 3000 S900 systems. There are currently no plans for supporting the DLT Libraries for normal MPE/iX operations such as BOOT, FCOPY or STORE. DLT Libraries will be supported only when used in conjunction with a third party software package, Legato's NetWorker. Inquiries about DLT Library support should be made directly to Legato.

Product Overview

The DLT8000 drive accepts the new CompacTape IV cartridge. When this cartridge is used the amount of data you can store on a tape can be up to 40.0 GB native, or an expected 80.0 GB of data using the compression mode for the DLT8000. The actual amount of data stored in compression mode is dependent on the nature of the data being stored; i.e., text files tend to be highly compressible while code files are not. The device can also use the CompacTape III cartridge. The amount of data you can store on this tape cartridge can be 10.0 GB native capacity or 20.0 GB compressed.

Configuration

Here is an sample configuration as it should be on the HP 3000 for the DLT8000:

io> ld 91LDEV:    91  DEVNAME:                 OUTDEV:        0    MODE:
ID: DLT8000                            RSIZE:       128   DEVTYPE: TAPE
PATH: 4/4.3.0                        MPETYPE:        24   MPESUBTYPE: 8
CLASS: TAPE     DLTTAPE  DDUMPio> lp 4/4.3.0
PATH:  4/4.3.0                              LDEV:   90
ID:  DLT8000                                TYPE:   TAPE
PMGR:  SCSI_TAPE2_DM                     PMGRPRI:   10 
LMGR:  LOGICAL_DEVICE_MANAGER             MAXIOS:    0io> lp 4/4.3
PATH:  4/4.3                                LDEV:
ID:  PSEUDO                                 TYPE:   DA
PMGR:  TRANSPARENT_MGR                    PMGRPRI:   6
LMGR:                                      MAXIOS:   0io> lp 4/3
PATH:  4/3                                  LDEV:
ID: HP28696A                                  TYPE:   DA
PMGR:  SCSI_DAM                            PMGRPRI:    6
LMGR:                                       MAXIOS:    0