Ultrum960 1/8 Autoloader with CommVault

[AGM]

I have upgraded from Arcserve to Commvault software and from an AIT to the above autoloader. How can I get the autoloader to eject the tape once the backup has completed?

[Curtis Ballard]

Do you have CommVault configured to use a tape library or a standalone drive. If you are using it as a standalone drive you should set the configuration on the library through the front panel to use stack mode instead of random. Autodetect is the default but if an application like CommVault that is tape library aware can send commands to the library that cause it to expect random mode.

In stacker mode the autoloader will automatically eject the tape once the backup is complete and load the next tape.

If that isn't the behavior you are looking for then you are probably looking for the setting in CommVault that tells it to unload the drive after a backup. It's been too many years since I used CommVault for me to remember where that setting is but when I looked at it in the past you could leave the tape in the drive so that later appends would be fast or you could remove the tape from the drive.

Sorry I can't be more specific about the CommVault settings. Hopefully I can at least point you in the right direction.

[AGM]

Thanks for your reply Curtis.

Commvault appears to have the Autoloader set as a library. If I issue the command to unload the tape it just unloads it from the drive in to the carrier but won't eject it from the carrier so that it can be fully removed from the device.

Alan

[Curtis Ballard]

Thanks for the additional detail. Now I understand what you are asking. We have had that question a number of times.

The problem there is that until a couple of months ago there was no standard SCSI command for opening a load port in a tape library. In a few cases a tape library will provide a vendor unique command to allow ejecting a tape and work with some of the backup apps to implement that but backup applications don't like to implement functionality that only works on one product.

Applications are starting to add support now that there is a standard command for opening the load port. It is possible there may be a firmware update for the 960 1/8 autoloader that will implement that function sometime in the future since that is still a current product but I don't know if there are plans for that. The load port on the 1/8 doesn't work quite like a standard library mailslot so it doesn't fit very well in the new command which makes it a difficult to support.

[Curtis Ballard]

I realize in re-reading my response that I never really answered the question.

Since there is no standard SCSI command for "eject a tape" from an autoloader it is not possible to get CommVault (or any other app) to eject the tape out of the 1/8 autoloaders. Sorry.