Using LTO7 Ultrium 15000 internal autoloader drive as external standalone drive.

[lto7tapehelp]

Hello, I have purchased an unused LTO-7 Ultrium 15000 SAS Drive N7P37A.

After removing the sled, and putting it into an external drive enclosure, the drive turns on and conducts all of its start up tests, displaying different messages on the single character display one by one until it finally hits a solid green for a few seconds before turning into a flashing amber led with an "E" message.

After doing some research this appears to be a sign that the drive is in "library mode" and can't be used or detected unless connected to a drive library.

There are some resources about flipping some dip switches to turn the drive into standalone or to turn on "Automatic Drive Online", or sending a particlarly crafted packet through to the serial port. However, all of those resources are talking about IBM drives, not HPE drives.

What process should I do to enable Automatic Drive Online on my drive, or to turn it into standalone mode to be used via SAS with an external enclosure? And if I need to connect to the serial port to do so - what cables would I need to do so?

Thank you!

[NarayanKK-SO]

@lto7tapehelp

The following is an extract from a LTO7 drive installed in a Library.

|__ Drive
    ||__ Data compression                                 : Enabled
    ||__ Current block size                               : Not available
    ||__ Detect WORM tampering                            : Enabled
    ||__ Reads after WORM tampering                       : Disabled (10b)
    ||__ Write Mode                                       : Write Anywhere
    ||__ Media removal (software controlled)              : Allowed
    ||__ Encryption/Decryption capability                 : Hardware encryption/decryption
    ||__ Encryption key size                              : 32 bytes (256 bits)

We can only change the Data Compression option and the block size (depends on the backup application control). Apart from this, there are no other options to change the drives native characters. Also, these drives are controlled and managed by a Library controller. So there are no external ports (apart from 2 SAS connections and a NIC port) for a serial connection when removed from the library.
MSL Library page:- https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c04006690en_us&page=GUID-D7147C7F-2016-0901-0A7A-000000000944.html

[lto7tapehelp]

@NarayanKK-SO,

Is this all of the options available though in total, or just through the interface you are using?

I saw from this technical documentation (it is for LTO6 because I could not find any documentation for the LTO7 drives, but they seem to have the same features).

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E38452_01/en/LTO6_Vol1_E1_D7/LTO6_Vol1_E1_D7.pdf

Page 24 Figure 6 shows that there should be a diagnostic serial port and other managment ports available to use with the ADI/ACI protocol. I also see these sames ports/interfaces on the physical internal tape drive I have. I don't believe HPE tape drives support LDI unfortunately...

So, if I were to be able to connect to some interface that allows me to send commands via ADI/ACI, would I not be able to change the configuration to put it into a standalone mode that doesn't require a library connected to issue commands, I believe the  "autoload" configuration variable I saw seemed relevant.

I really am just trying to determine if this is possible at all before I try to return the product

[NarayanKK-SO]

The tape docuemt which is referred here is for Standalone models. For a library drive the power and management options are carried out through the front ports and SAS/FC signaling through the rear ports. There is no such option to enable or disable the drives personality.

Hope this answers your query.