Chapter 6 Configuring Tape Drives

Table of Contents

Several kinds of tape drives, having different recording methods and formats, can be configured to HP-UX:

nine-track reel-to-reel tape drive
cartridge tape drive (configured like a disk device)
QIC tape drive
DDS (DAT) tape drive
8mm Exabyte tape drive
3480-style cartridge tape drive

Despite their differences, any of these tape drives can be configured into HP-UX by the same basic procedure:

Select the device drivers, based on the interface to which the tape drive is attached, and include them in the kernel.
Set the tape drive to a unique address on the interface bus.
Follow the steps documented in this chapter to configure HP-UX for the device.

Once you reboot the system with the tape driver installed and configured, insf automatically creates the device special files that enable you to use the features of the specific tape drive technologies.

You will create customized device special files (using mksf) only for special circumstances, such as when you have to write a tape on a tape drive that supports data compression, but you intend to read it on a tape drive that does not support data compression. Examples are given in “Creating Customized Device Special Files for Tape Devices” later in this chapter.

Chapter 6 Configuring Tape Drives

Technical documentation

» Table of Contents

» Index