Reading DLT tapes in a new SDLT drive

[IainT]

We have just replaced our old ATL library (one DLT8000 drive) with a StorageTek L20 (one SDLT320 drive). I have configured the new library as DLT3 to match our other SDLT library.

My problem is reading the old DLT tapes in the new library - NBU doesn't view the DLT tapes as valid media for the new robot. Which means it won't mount the old tapes for a restore, giving the following error: "error requesting media (tpreq)(98)".

Is there a trick to making this work?

 

[lenski]

But are the tapes DLT3 ? The library is not going to load tapes maked as one type into a drive marked as something else.

 

[IainT]

No, but my understanding was that SDLT drives are backwards compatible with DLT, in that they can read DLT tapes...

 

[lenski]

Yes if you can get the tape into the drive it would be readable but all the library sees is tape type A and drives type B. it is not going to put a type A into a type B. The library does not know that they are compatible.

 

[IainT]

OK, thanks.

 

[adpwl1]

Here is a neat interactive quide from Quantum to show what reads and writes to what media.

http://www.quantum.com/am/service_support/compatibility/dlttape_media_compatibility_matrix.htm