Supported Media Types

The SL4000 supports LTO5+ and all T10000 tape types. To read and write data, each tape must be compatible with at least one drive in the library.

Tape Cartridge Types

• Data tapes — used to store customer data. The label is six-character volume ID followed by a two character media ID. Such as ABC123L8, where ABC123 is the volume ID and L8 is the media ID for an LTO-8 cartridge.

• Cleaning tapes — used to clean tape drives. The label is a six-character volume ID with CLNUnn for plus the cleaning-specific media ID, where CLNU is the cleaning tape identifier and nn is a sequence of numbers (for example, CLNU01CU would be a universal LTO cleaning tape).

• Diagnostic tapes — used for diagnosing tape drive issues. The label is a six-character volume ID with DG[space]nnn plus the media ID, where DG[space] is the diagnostic tape identifier, and nnn is a sequence of numbers (for example, DG 001L7 would be an LTO7 diagnostic tape label).

Supported Media Types and Media ID

The SL4000 supports the following media types and corresponding two-character media ID:

• L5 = LTO Generation 5
• L6 = LTO Generation 6
• L7 = LTO Generation 7
• L8 = LTO Generation 8
• L9 = LTO Generation 9

  Note:

  See Library Support of LTO9 Tape Calibration.
• M8 = LTO Generation 7 cartridge initialized to 9TB capacity (only compatible with LTO8 drives)
• LV = LTO Generation 5 WORM
• LW = LTO Generation 6 WORM
• LX = LTO Generation 7 WORM
• LY = LTO Generation 8 WORM
• LZ = LTO Generation 9 WORM
• CU = Universal LTO cleaning
• T1 = T10000 A/B data
• T2 = T10000 C/D data
• TS = T10000 A/B sport
• TT = T10000 C/D sport
• CT = T00000 cleaning (A and B only)
• CL = Universal T10000 cleaning

What happens when you mount an M8 cartridge in an LTO9 drive?

LTO9 does not support M8 media. If you mount an M8 cartridge into an LTO9, the drive will reject the cartridge and the library will report a Media Error.