Moving tapes in and out of magazines

[CA129087]

Second message :)

In our 40 tape library, we are trying to keep it so slots 1-15 have the tapes used in full backups, slots 16-34 have the tapes used for incremental backups, slot 40 is cleaning, and we'd like to have slots 36-39 used as "mail slots"

I read on here before that to deal with mail slots, you basically have to script it.

Is this true? If so, what I'm trying to do then is after an incremental backup, move the tapes used for that backup to the mailslot (36-39). The other half of the equation is when those tapes are rotated out and new tapes put on slots 36-39, have them moved somewhere in the slot 16-35 area, formatted if need be, etc...

Or am I just overcomplicating things here and there is an easier way to manage this?

Thanks for comments.

P.S. This thread has been moved from Archival Products to to Tape Libraries and Drives - HP Forum Moderator

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Dan,
which library do you use?
Eugeny

[CA129087]

It's a surestore 2/40 (yes..2 drives 40 slots) with OB4.1

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Ok.
What's a mail slot and why people use it?
Mailslot is used for convenient tapes access and media removal/inserting. Example: if you'll open a door of library completely, then after you'll rearrange tapes in slots, you'll close door and library have to scan ALL tapes to check what's changed. If you set up mail slot, let's say, for 1 tape, then you have an option to access mailslot instead of all library contents, and library do not need to rescan remaining 9 slots (1+9=10 slot at each library door).
Now to your questions:
1. tapes allocation for different types of backup - should be done by backup utility;
2. it's not good idea to put and keep cleaning tape into mailslot. Maislot for tape access. So when cleaning tape will expire, you'll simply tell library to move tape from its storage slot to mail slot so you'll be able to remove it and insert new one;
3. With this library, you can setup mailslot as 0, 1, 5 or 10 (upper right library door) tape slots. I guess backup utility should know that you have mail slot also and treat them correctly.
Hope it helps!
Eugeny