IBM TS4500 R7 Tape Library Guide

IBM TS4500 R7 Tape Library Guide

by Larry Coyne, Robert Beiderbeck, Khanh Ngo, Jesus Eduardo Cervantes Rolon, Jeremy Tudgay, Fabian Corona Villarreal, Erwin Zwemmer
Released July 2021
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: 9780738458922

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Book description

The IBM® TS4500 (TS4500) tape library is a next-generation tape solution that offers higher storage density and better integrated management than previous solutions.

This IBM Redbooks® publication gives you a close-up view of the new IBM TS4500 tape library. In the TS4500, IBM delivers the density that today's and tomorrow's data growth requires. It has the cost-effectiveness and the manageability to grow with business data needs, while you preserve investments in IBM tape library products.

Now, you can achieve a low cost per terabyte (TB) and a high TB density per square foot because the TS4500 can store up to 11 petabytes (PB) of uncompressed data in a single frame library or scale up to 2 PB per square foot to over 350 PB. The TS4500 offers the following benefits:


  • High availability: Dual active accessors with integrated service bays reduce inactive service space by 40%. The Elastic Capacity option can be used to eliminate inactive service space.
  • Flexibility to grow: The TS4500 library can grow from the right side and the left side of the first L frame because models can be placed in any active position.
  • Increased capacity: The TS4500 can grow from a single L frame up to another 17 expansion frames with a capacity of over 23,000 cartridges.
  • High-density (HD) generation 1 frames from the TS3500 library can be redeployed in a TS4500.
  • Capacity on demand (CoD): CoD is supported through entry-level, intermediate, and base-capacity configurations.
  • Advanced Library Management System (ALMS): ALMS supports dynamic storage management, which enables users to create and change logical libraries and configure any drive for any logical library.
  • Support for IBM TS1160 while also supporting TS1155, TS1150, and TS1140 tape drive: The TS1160 gives organizations an easy way to deliver fast access to data, improve security, and provide long-term retention, all at a lower cost than disk solutions. The TS1160 offers high-performance, flexible data storage with support for data encryption. Also, this enhanced fifth-generation drive can help protect investments in tape automation by offering compatibility with existing automation.

    The TS1160 Tape Drive Model 60E delivers a dual 10 Gb or 25 Gb Ethernet host attachment interface that is optimized for cloud-based and hyperscale environments.

    The TS1160 Tape Drive Model 60F delivers a native data rate of 400 MBps, the same load/ready, locate speeds, and access times as the TS1155, and includes dual-port 16 Gb Fibre Channel support.

  • Support of the IBM Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Ultrium 8 tape drive: The LTO Ultrium 8 offering represents significant improvements in capacity, performance, and reliability over the previous generation, LTO Ultrium 7, while still protecting your investment in the previous technology.
  • Support of LTO 8 Type M cartridge (m8): The LTO Program introduced a new capability with LTO-8 drives. The ability of the LTO-8 drive to write 9 TB on a brand new LTO-7 cartridge instead of 6 TB as specified by the LTO-7 format. Such a cartridge is called an LTO-7 initialized LTO-8 Type M cartridge.
  • Integrated TS7700 back-end Fibre Channel (FC) switches are available.
  • Up to four library-managed encryption (LME) key paths per logical library are available.

This book describes the TS4500 components, feature codes, specifications, supported tape drives, encryption, new integrated management console (IMC), command-line interface (CLI), and REST over SCSI (RoS) to obtain status information about library components.

October 2020 - Added support for the 3592 model 60S tape drive that provides a dual-port 12 Gb SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) interface for host attachment.

Table of contents

  1. Front cover
  2. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  3. Preface
    1. Authors
    2. Now you can become a published author, too
    3. Comments welcome
    4. Stay connected to IBM Redbooks
  4. Summary of changes
    1. July 2021, Ninth Edition (Update)
    2. October 2020, Ninth Edition (Update)
    3. June 2020, Ninth Edition
    4. January 2020, Eighth Edition
    5. December 2018, Seventh Edition
    6. May 2018, minor update
    7. January 2018, Sixth Edition
    8. August 2017, Fifth Edition
    9. July 2016, Fourth Edition
    10. November 2015, Third Edition
    11. January 2015, Second Edition
  5. Chapter 1. IBM TS4500 tape library
    1. 1.1 Overview of IBM TS4500 tape library
    2. 1.2 TS4500 product description
      1. 1.2.1 TS4500 tape library frames for IBM LTO Ultrium Fibre Channel drives
      2. 1.2.2 TS4500 tape library frames for IBM 3592 drives
      3. 1.2.3 TS4500 tape library storage-only HD frames
      4. 1.2.4 TS4500 High Availability option
      5. 1.2.5 Mainframe-ready
      6. 1.2.6 External TSSC/IMC
      7. 1.2.7 TS4500 tape library top rack frame TR1 and TR2
    3. 1.3 TS4500 tape library components
    4. 1.4 Feature codes for the TS4500
    5. 1.5 Host platforms and device drivers
    6. 1.6 Specifications
      1. 1.6.1 Physical specifications
      2. 1.6.2 Floor requirements
      3. 1.6.3 Operating environment
      4. 1.6.4 Power and cooling specifications
  6. Chapter 2. TS4500 Ultrium Linear Tape-Open and 3592 tape drives
    1. 2.1 IBM TS1100 tape drives for the TS4500 tape library
      1. 2.1.1 Technology enhancements
      2. 2.1.2 Reliability and availability
      3. 2.1.3 Capacity and performance features
      4. 2.1.4 Performance or capacity scaling
      5. 2.1.5 Physical attachment
      6. 2.1.6 Media
      7. 2.1.7 3592 media cartridge
      8. 2.1.8 WORM functions
      9. 2.1.9 Improved media Statistical Analysis and Reporting System
      10. 2.1.10 Tape encryption for TS1100
      11. 2.1.11 IBM Spectrum Archive and LTFS support
    2. 2.2 IBM TS1160 tape drive
      1. 2.2.1 TS1160 physical characteristics
      2. 2.2.2 Media
      3. 2.2.3 Capacity and performance
      4. 2.2.4 Emulation
      5. 2.2.5 Data safe mode
      6. 2.2.6 Upgrade considerations
      7. 2.2.7 Firmware updates
      8. 2.2.8 RAS
    3. 2.3 IBM TS1155 and TS1150 tape drive
      1. 2.3.1 TS1155 and TS1150 physical characteristics
      2. 2.3.2 Media
      3. 2.3.3 Capacity and performance
      4. 2.3.4 Emulation
      5. 2.3.5 Data safe mode
      6. 2.3.6 Upgrade considerations
      7. 2.3.7 Firmware updates
      8. 2.3.8 RAS
      9. 2.3.9 Improved media Statistical Analysis and Reporting System
      10. 2.3.10 Encryption
    4. 2.4 IBM TS1140 tape drive (Model 3592 EH7)
      1. 2.4.1 3592 media
      2. 2.4.2 Capacity and performance
    5. 2.5 IBM LTO Ultrium tape drives for the TS4500 tape library
      1. 2.5.1 LTO core technology
      2. 2.5.2 Data compression
      3. 2.5.3 Ultrium tape media
      4. 2.5.4 Physical attachment
      5. 2.5.5 Performance specifications
    6. 2.6 IBM LTO Ultrium 8 tape drive (Model 3588 F8C, F8S)
    7. 2.7 IBM LTO Ultrium 7 tape drive (Model 3588 F7C)
    8. 2.8 IBM LTO Ultrium 6 tape drive (Model 3588 F6C)
    9. 2.9 IBM LTO Ultrium 5 tape drive (Model 3588 F5C)
    10. 2.10 IBM Spectrum Archive
      1. 2.10.1 Linear Tape File System (LTFS)
      2. 2.10.2 IBM Spectrum Archive Editions
  7. Chapter 3. Encryption
    1. 3.1 Tape encryption overview
      1. 3.1.1 Encryption-enabled tape drives
      2. 3.1.2 Encryption key management
    2. 3.2 Encryption policy
      1. 3.2.1 Encryption methods
      2. 3.2.2 Managing encryption on the TS4500
      3. 3.2.3 Application-managed encryption
      4. 3.2.4 System-managed encryption
      5. 3.2.5 Library-managed encryption
      6. 3.2.6 Prerequisites for using encryption on the IBM TS4500 tape library
  8. Chapter 4. TS4500 management graphical user interface
    1. 4.1 Integrated management console
    2. 4.2 Using the TS4500 management GUI
      1. 4.2.1 Connecting to the management GUI
      2. 4.2.2 System summary display
    3. 4.3 Settings
      1. 4.3.1 Library
      2. 4.3.2 Networking
      3. 4.3.3 Notifications
      4. 4.3.4 Security
      5. 4.3.5 GUI Preferences
    4. 4.4 Access menu
      1. 4.4.1 Users
      2. 4.4.2 Roles
    5. 4.5 Cartridges menu
      1. 4.5.1 Cartridges
      2. 4.5.2 Cartridges by Logical Library
      3. 4.5.3 VOLSER ranges
      4. 4.5.4 VOLSER Range by Logical Library
    6. 4.6 Drives menu
      1. 4.6.1 Drives
      2. 4.6.2 Drives by Logical Library
      3. 4.6.3 Fibre Channel Ports
      4. 4.6.4 SAS Ports
      5. 4.6.5 Ethernet Ports
    7. 4.7 Library menu
      1. 4.7.1 Advanced Library Management System
      2. 4.7.2 Creating Logical Library window
      3. 4.7.3 Slots
    8. 4.8 Monitoring
      1. 4.8.1 System
      2. 4.8.2 Events
    9. 4.9 Tape System Library Manager
    10. 4.10 Remote support
      1. 4.10.1 Remote support through a system console
      2. 4.10.2 Remote support security
  9. Chapter 5. Command-line interface
    1. 5.1 TS4500 command-line interface summary
    2. 5.2 Installing the CLI
    3. 5.3 Commands
  10. Chapter 6. TS4500 REST API
    1. 6.1 REST API Overview
      1. 6.1.1 Commands
      2. 6.1.2 Endpoints
      3. 6.1.3 Parameters
    2. 6.2 Using sg3_utils (Linux)
      1. 6.2.1 Example
      2. 6.2.2 Endpoints
    3. 6.3 Using ITDT for RoS
      1. 6.3.1 Examples
      2. 6.3.2 Endpoints
    4. 6.4 HTTP return codes
  11. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. Help from IBM
  12. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: IBM TS4500 R7 Tape Library Guide
  • Author(s): Larry Coyne, Robert Beiderbeck, Khanh Ngo, Jesus Eduardo Cervantes Rolon, Jeremy Tudgay, Fabian Corona Villarreal, Erwin Zwemmer
  • Release date: July 2021
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: 9780738458922