Channel Calibration; Data Cartridge Capacity Scaling; Encryption; Inhibit Firmware Down-Leveling - IBM Ultrium Gen 6 Installation And User Manual

Channel calibration

System performance is further optimized by a feature called Channel calibration, in
which the drive automatically customizes each read/write data channel to
compensate for variations in such things as the recording channel's transfer
function, the media, and characteristics of the drive head.

Data cartridge capacity scaling

The SET CAPACITY SCSI command enables a customer to capacity scale a data
cartridge to enable faster random access. For example, a user can capacity scale a
data cartridge to 20% of its normal length which improves the average access time
by almost a factor of 5; however, it also reduces the native capacity of the tape to
500 GB.

Encryption

The IBM LTO 6 Half High Tape Drive supports host Application Managed
Encryption (AME), using T10 encryption methods.
However, encryption must be enabled through the software application that you
use to manage the tape drive. For more information about enabling encryption, see
the independent software vendor documentation that came with your software.
Data encryption is supported only with LTO Ultrium 4, LTO Ultrium 5, and LTO
Ultrium 6 data cartridges. The encryption-enabled drive contains the necessary
hardware and firmware to encrypt and decrypt host tape application data.
Encryption policy and encryption keys are provided by the host application; there
is no encryption setup required for this drive. A drive digital certificate is installed
at manufacturing time. Each drive has a unique serial number and certificate. The
T10 application might validate each drive instance by checking the drive's digital
certificate.
Application-managed encryption is supported on AIX
and Solaris. Encryption requires the latest device drivers available on the IBM
website: http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral.
For more information, see the IBM Tape Device Drivers Encryption Support and IBM
LTO Ultrium Tape Drive SCSI Reference documentation.

Inhibit firmware down-leveling

The drive provides the capability to prevent loading and installing drive microcode
via a Field Microcode Replace (FMR tape) if the firmware level contained in the
FMR tape is older than the code level already installed. This option is controlled
by the host application. No checking is performed if the firmware level is loaded
via the host interface or the library interface.

SAS interface

The drive has a dual-port 6 Gbps SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) host interface, but
only one of the SAS ports is used for a host connection.
Important: The tape drive supports only one host connection.
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Chapter 1. Product description
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