Forum Discussion

Yugandhar_Sanam's avatar
Yugandhar_Sanam
Level 2
9 years ago

Tape Drives compatibility

Hi All,

 

I Just want to know, Can we able to use the LTO6 Tapes in LTO5 supported tape library. And want to know the compatibility types. Got to know that we have backward compatibility while referring to the tapes capacity before inserting into the library. Could you please let me mnow that do we have FORWARD compatibility and how it work??

Pleas help me with that.

 

 

Thanks,

Yugandhar S

7.7
Backup and Recovery
NetBackup
Windows XP
  • Nicolai's avatar
    Nicolai
    Moderator
    9 years ago

    A LTO6 tape drive will be able to read and write LTO5 format.

    A LTO5 tape drive will NOT be able to use LTO6 tapes. There is not forward compatibility.

    See the wikipedia article of LTO - refer to section "Generations" & Compatibility

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape-Open

     

     

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    9 years ago
    There is no such thing as forward compatibility. Think about it logically - it simply does not make sense. Not for hardware or any software. You won't try to backup a NBU 7.7 client with 7.6 media server, right? You won't try to play a blu-ray disc in a dvd player, right? Look at URL in Nicolai's post for backward compatibility.