This appendix discusses the following:
There must be at least as many slots as there are virtual tapes. By default, the VTL Console provides 678 slots for virtual tapes. For most sites, this is a sufficient number. However, if you want a greater number of tapes, you must adjust the Number of Slots field in step 6 of “Create the Library” in Chapter 3 accordingly. You must adjust this number the first time that you create tapes for the library, because you cannot modify the slot number later. The maximum number of slots available varies by the VTL software version:
4.5 VTL software has 4096 total number of slots:
If you have 1 shelf, it can have 4096 tapes
If you have 8 shelves, each shelf can have 512 (4096/8=512)
7.5 VTL software has 65536 total number of slots:
If you have 1 shelf, it can have 65536 tapes
If you have 8 shelves, each shelf can have 8192 (65536/8 = 8192)
The algorithm used to relabel the barcodes so that they refer to the specific RAID set allows for up to 1,296 tapes per RAID set (which is 33,696 tapes per shelf, because there are 26 RAID sets per shelf). For most sites, this is a more than sufficient number. However, if you want an extremely large number of tapes, you must adjust the number of slots as mentioned above and create the tapes in multiple batches, running the dmreadycopantapes script (“Relabel the Migration Tapes” in Chapter 3) on the first batch before creating the second batch.
 | Note: You must adjust the slot number when creating the first batch of tapes; after the first batch has been created, you can no longer adjust the slot number. |