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Using a nonqualified tape drive

You can use a nonqualified tape drive on a storage system if it can emulate a qualified tape drive. It is then treated like a qualified tape drive. To use a nonqualified tape drive, you must first determine whether it emulates any of the qualified tape drives.

A nonqualified tape drive is one that is attached to the storage system, but not supported or recognized by ONTAP.

  1. View the nonqualified tape drives attached to a storage system by using the storage tape show-supported-status command.
    The following command displays tape drives attached to the storage system and the support and qualification status of each tape drive. The nonqualified tape drives are also listed. tape_drive_vendor_name is a nonqualified tape drive attached to the storage system, but not supported by ONTAP.
    cluster1::> storage tape show-supported-status -node Node1

              Node: Node1
                                        Is
              Tape Drive                Supported  Support Status
              --------------------      ---------  --------------
              "tape_drive_vendor_name"  false      Nonqualified tape drive
              Hewlett-Packard C1533A    true       Qualified
              Hewlett-Packard C1553A    true       Qualified
              Hewlett-Packard Ultrium 1 true       Qualified
              Sony SDX-300C             true       Qualified
              Sony SDX-500C             true       Qualified
              StorageTek T9840C         true       Dynamically Qualified
              StorageTek T9840D         true       Dynamically Qualified
              Tandberg LTO-2 HH         true       Dynamically Qualified

  2. Emulate the qualified tape drive.
    Lenovo Downloads: Tape Device Configuration Files