Defining a Device Class

To define a device class, first complete the following fields and then click Finish, or click Cancel to end this task.

Device Class Name

Enter the name of the device class to be defined. This parameter is required. The maximum length of the device class name is 30 characters.

Recording Format

Select an option. This parameter is optional.
Drive Specifies that ADSM selects the highest format that can be supported by the drive on which a volume is mounted. Drive is the default.
3590B Specifies that ADSM writes data using the basic (uncompressed) format. This results in a tape capacity of approximately 10GB.
3590C Specifies that ADSM writes data using the compressed format. This results in a tape capacity of approximately 10GB. This format, however, uses the tape drive's hardware compression feature, so the actual capacity may be greater, depending on the effectiveness of compression.

Library Name

Enter the name of the defined library object that contains the tape drives used by this device class.

Mount Limit

Enter the maximum number of volumes that can be simultaneously mounted for the device class. This parameter is optional.

The following are possible values:

Drives Specifies that ADSM determines the mount limit based on the number of drives defined and online in the library.
mountlimitvalue Specify a number for the maximum number of drives used concurrently in this device class by ADSM. This value must never be allowed to exceed the number of drives that are defined and online in the library that services this device class.
0 The value of zero prevents new transactions from gaining access to the storage pool.

Mount Retention

Enter the amount of time, in minutes, to retain an idle volume before dismounting it. This parameter is optional.

Tape Volume Prefix

Enter the high level qualifier of the file name that the server writes into the media labels. This parameter is optional. For each sequential access volume assigned to this device class, ADSM uses this prefix to create the data set name.

Estimated Capacity

Enter the estimated capacity for the volumes categorized by this device class. This parameter is optional. You do not need to specify an estimated capacity unless the drives perform data compression, or you have volumes of nonstandard size. Specify a number followed by a scale factor. Scale factors and their meanings are:
K Kilobyte
M Megabyte
G Gigabyte

Mount Wait

Enter a number for the maximum length of time, in minutes, to wait for a volume to be mounted in a manual library. This parameter is optional.