Support for Non-Standard Label Formats

The SL150 can accommodate non-standard LTO labels to support proprietary labeling schemes.

By default, the library uses the eight-character label format that is standard for LTO cartridges. While most backup and storage management applications support the standard LTO labeling format, a few use proprietary labeling schemes to track volumes. If you use such an application, you can, in most cases, configure the SL150 to automatically translate between the physical labels on your cartridges and the logical label format that the application uses internally.

Translating Between Physical and Logical Labels

To accommodate the fullest range of possible labeling schemes, the library supports labels 8 to 14 characters long and provides a label windowing feature that lets you specify how labels should be interpreted when communicating with the host application.

So, for example, if the host application uses only a portion of the physical cartridge label to identify volumes, you can tell the library to construct a logical label using a subset of the characters. Alternatively, if the physical cartridge label is simply a string of characters that does not identify the media domain (LTO) and generation, you can tell the library to skip domain and type checking and send all characters to the host without any further processing (you should not use this option, if your labels include a domain and type).

Managing Unidentifiable, Unsupported, or Missing Labels

If the physical label on a cartridge is missing, misapplied, damaged, or incorrectly formatted, the cartridge can be loaded and stored in the library. Since the library software cannot identify the cartridge, it marks the Tape Label field of the corresponding tape properties sheet [UNREADABLE].