Initialize LTO-7 Media to LTO-8 M

[taurus1978]

Hello all,

i just did some research on using LTO-7 Media (6TB native) inside a LTO-8 Device an initialize this as an "LTO-8 M" Cartridge. So that native capacity goes up to 9 TB.
The fact is that native LTO-7 Media all use a barcode Label ending with L7. So first you need a new Barcode-Label "M8". Buy this one at your local reseller or distributor .
After that the cartridge can be initialized to the new higher capacity. But NOT if it has been initialized as LTO-7 before!
i get the following document from some fellow IBM guys here in germany:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/comm ... %20FAQ.doc


As stated in the FAQ Doc the M8 cartridges come pre-initialized by the vendor or when inserting brand new cartridges into a LTO-8 compatible Lib.
And initialize them right after inserting them.


any thoughts on this ?

Regards
Patrick

[Dima P.]

Hello Patrick.

Have seen similar answers from Quantum, so documents looks valid for me. Thanks.

[Regnor]

Here's the whitepaper from HPE: https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/V2/getpdf.a ... 948ENW.pdf?

I can give you more information on how it works/worked in the next weeks.

[Regnor]

So nothing special to do.
The tapes are labeled with an "M8"-labes, as soon as I insert them into the library they get recognized as "Gen. M8"; Veeam shows 8,2TB usable capacity

[Dima P.]

Thanks for the heads up. I found the answer to the most popular question related to LTO 8M tape from HPE folks: they confirm that only brand new LTO 7 tape media can be initialize as initialized as LTO 8M. No workaround or hack here unfortunately.

[matrox65]

How i can a new medium as LTO-8M initialize? When i inventory a brand new media, it have only 5.5TB free space.

best regards, Juerg

[veremin]

Have you checked the article provided above? Have you assigned M8 label to them and tried to initialize it with LTO-8 drive? Thanks!

[matrox65]

Hi, i use a half high standalone tape writer. I dont need the bar code.

[veremin]

An excerpt from the guide:

The library makes the decision on the type of cartridge based upon the cartridge bar code – if the last two characters are “M8” it will be initialized as Type M, otherwise it will be initialized as
a standard LTO-7 cartridge

So, not sure whether it's possible to initialize media as LTO-8M tape without barcode assigned to it.

However, feel free to reach your device manufacture to get concrete answer.

Thanks!

[Regnor]

At least for HPE you can only initialize Type M Media with a library; a standalone drive won't work.

[fgw]

can confirm this!

just enter ******M8 labeled tapes into library and the tape will be automatically correctly initialized!

using HPE 1/8 G2 Autoloader here and as said by previous poster, this works only in a library as only library is able to read tape labels/barcodes.

this LTO7-M8 tapes will show capacity of 8.2TB