Why do LTO changers need labels?

[ExecutiveParkingLot]

Good morning Veeam. A little LTO background from Wikipedia:

Every LTO cartridge has a cartridge memory chip inside it. It is made up of 256 (128 on LTO-1, 2 and 3) blocks of memory, where each block is 32 bytes for a total of 8 KB (4 KB on LTO-1, 2 and 3). This memory can be read or written, one block at a time, via a non-contacting passive RF interface. This memory is used to identify tapes, to help drives discriminate between different generations of the technology, and to store tape-use information.

With that, why do we need to label the tapes, why do the changers need barcode readers at all?
Labels do help humans know what tape it is. But I need to put a barcode on the tape so the offsite vault can track it anyway. All my LTO4's have two barcodes on them.

I'm starting off with a new TL4000 on LTO6 running under DPM and working out the whole label scheme.
Also, first post. We just got into Veeam for our vspace backups and I'm looking at DPM to backup the Veeam.
Thanks for any help!

[Dima P.]

Hello Jeff,
Welcome to our forums!

Barcode reading is simply faster and is treated as perfect identifier for both admin and a tape library. Additionally - mounting the tape media to the drive and reading the data from the chip is slower than just scanning the barcode inside the media changer. There are so called “blind libraries” - they don’t have the barcode reader built in and rely only on the data stored in the chip memory, Veeam B&R v7 support such tapes as well as the regular once.

Is there any specific reason why you want to use DPM? Veeam tape functionality is specifically designed to work tight with the original backup to disk jobs (for example backup to tape schedule can be triggered by original backup to disk job), and you may find it more convenient to backup Veeam with Veeam

[ExecutiveParkingLot]

Hi Dmitry and thanks for writing.
Interesting on the chip reading, I did not know it had to load them to read it. Yes, that would be quite time consuming. I think I'm ordering labels! :} No problem.

As for the DPM...
I'm picking up the project and the originators were planning to use DPM for physical machines and the Veeam storage. I was under the impression that Veeam did not deal with tape, and does not back up physical boxes. Seems I need to research more of what I'm getting into, I'll be seeking out some white papers, I'd also be up for discussing with someone at Veeam if that were possible.
Thanks again,
E.P. Lot

[veremin]

I was under the impression that Veeam did not deal with tape, and does not back up physical boxes. Seems I need to research more of what I'm getting into, I'll be seeking out some white papers, I'd also be up for discussing with someone at Veeam if that were possible.

Starting from version 7, VB&R does have tape functionality. You can archive to tape mediums files that reside on physical machines. It's not true physical backup, though.

If you need further clarification, you can ask here or create a separate thread in order not to overfill the existing discussion with irrelevant questions.

Thanks.