Defining a 3590 Device Class

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

Device Class Name

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

Recording Format

Select the recording format to be used when writing data to media. This parameter is optional. The default is Drive.

Use the DRIVE value only when the device class has compatible sequential access devices. If you specify DRIVE for a device class that has incompatible sequential access devices, then you must mount volumes on devices that are capable of reading or writing at the format established when the volume was first mounted. This can cause delays if the only sequential access device that can access the volume is already in use.

Note: This format uses the tape drive hardware compression feature. Depending on the effectiveness of compression, the actual capacity may be greater than the listed value. 

Format Estimated Capacity Description
Drive Determined by drive capacity. Specifies that the server selects the highest format that can be supported by the drive on which a volume is mounted.
3590 See note above. 10.0GB Uncompressed (basic) or compressed (if available) format
3590E See note above. 20.0GB Uncompressed (basic) or compressed (if available) format

Library Name

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

Mount Limit

Enter the maximum number of volumes that can be simultaneously mounted for the device class.

Mount Retention Period

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

Tape Volume Prefix

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

Estimated Capacity

Enter the estimated capacity for the volumes categorized by this device class.

The value must be an integer followed by one of these units:

K Kilobyte
M Megabyte
G Gigabyte

For more information on the default estimated capacity, see the Recording Format heading.

Mount Wait Period

Enter the maximum length of time, in minutes, to wait for a volume to be mounted.