Defining HCART type for new drives?

[David_McMullin]

We currently have LTO2 and LTO3 drives in an SL8500 robot. All drives are defined as HCART2, and all tapes are defined as HCART2. We do not use any bar code rules. This has worked fine for years. Our LTO2 tapes barcodes are 000000-999999, the LTO5 tapes barcodes are E00000-E99999.

We are adding LTO5 drives which cannot use the LTO2 tapes. A review of Symantec docs indicates that the HCART, HCART2 and HCART3 designations are all we have to use, and can be assigned to the drives. I added my LTO5 drives as HCART, and added some LTO5 tapes to the SL8500 library.

The tapes are seen after an inventory as HCART2.

Here are my questions -

since I will have LTO2 and LTO5 both in the library for a time - do I need to segregate the LTO5 tape/drives as HCART?

If so, how do I set the tapes as HCART?

Can I set them both to HCART2 and it will put the right tapes in the right drives?

If I have to use bar code rules - how do I get them to define the tapes to the right HCART?

The acsls seems to see the drives and tapes correctly.

NB 7.0.1 on Solaris

acsls -> SL8500

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

What is media type in ACSLS for LTO5 tapes?  (q vol <LTO5-mediaid>)

NBU assigns media type based on ACSLS media type. You can change that in the Robot Inventory -> Advanced Options-> Media Type Mappings .
You need to map ACS media type to HCART to match the NBU drive type.

See p. 396 of Admin Guide for UNIX,Linux, I   http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH127081

[David_McMullin]

That looks like it is a temporary solution -

"You can change the default mappings. Changes apply only to the current volume configuration update."

I found the vm.conf edits to make it permanent - but the LTO5 tape in NOT included in the tables!

Crosses fingers that it might work anyway - or UNKNOWN will work...

Thanks for pointing me to the right place!

I will mark it as a solution if it works!

[David_McMullin]

Looks like the vm.conf works, but I may have to remove or delete my tapes:

/usr/openv/volmgr/bin/vmupdate -rt acs -rn 0 -use_barcode_rules -h lorenzo -rh CBC-DL-1528-A

Running update:
Generating list of recommended changes ...

Update failed: media ID E00000 in database has media type 'HCART2', which
differs from media ID E00000 in the robot which is (according to the
media type returned from the robot, adjusted by media type mappings)
projected to have a media type of 'HCART'
Generating list of recommended changes ...

[Marianne]

Great Stuff! Good to see that the vm.conf entries are working (I have always worked with vm.conf entries, but thought that 'fixing' it in the GUI would update vm.conf as well , similar to 'Media ID Generation' updating vm.conf).

Yes, Inventory will only apply new density to new media, not change existing. Like you said - either delete and inventory again, or use vmchange (-new_mt <media_type> -m <media_id>) to update density.

[David_McMullin]

Thanks for the link to the manual - who would have thought reading the manual might solve this issue?

I had to make the vm.conf changes, and delete and re-invdentory the tapes. But as of now - I have HCART drives and HCART tapes, so they should work.

Funny that I always assumed since LTO2 was HCART2, that LTO5 would be HCART5 - but we only have HCART, HCART2, and HCART3 to work with...