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Labeling in Symantec Exec 2010

Chillanthropy
Not applicable

I was just wondering if it was acceptable to place an LT5 barcode label on an LT3 tape in order for it to be written on by exec, as opposed to just being able to be read. 

Is exec really incapable of writing to it because of it's lack of space or what? We send tapes offsite, although it hasn't happened yet in the cycle, i'm afraid we're going to have insuffecient space on too little of LT5 tapes for our backup jobs to be backuped. We have a lot of spare LT3 tapes from the last backup system we had.

Thank you

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Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Barcode labels do matter as a) Barcode rules will not work properly and b) some hardware drives/libraries may refuse to allow the use of the wrong tape if the barcode does not match the hardware vendors standards.

 

 

 

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2 REPLIES 2

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Barcode labels do matter as a) Barcode rules will not work properly and b) some hardware drives/libraries may refuse to allow the use of the wrong tape if the barcode does not match the hardware vendors standards.

 

 

 

Striker_303
Level 6
Employee

For LTO, older tapes are backward compatible with newer drives as follows:

- The previous generation tape can be read/written.
- The generation previous to that can be read.
- Generations before that are not compatible.

So, for example, an LTO-5 drive can read/write LTO-5, can read/write LTO-4, can read LTO-3, and is incompatible with LTO-1/2.

Newer tapes cannot be used in older drives under any circumstances. So, to the OP, an LTO-3 tape cannot be used in an LTO-2 drive.