Media and drive validation in a storage library

摘要

Systems and methods are described for validating storage media and/or media drives in a storage library using a hidden drive pool and a non-hidden media pool. For example, a storage library can be instructed to perform media/drive validation (MDV) on a selected pool of physical storage media using a selected pool of drive resources. Embodiments handle the pools so that, at least during performance of MDV, the drive resources in the drive pool are not visible to the host applications, but the storage media is still visible and can still be accessed by the host application. For example, the MDV can be performed in such a way that the host application cannot task a drive being used for validation, but the host application can perform operations on storage media in the media validation pool. Further, some embodiments operate in the context of storage library complex-wide validation pools.

主权项

1. A storage library system comprising:
a plurality of media slots, at least some having tangible storage media disposed therein; a plurality of media drives that operate to receive the tangible storage medium for reading or writing; a robotic assembly that operates to ferry the storage media between the media slots and the media drives; and at least one processor that operates to communicate with the robotic assembly and at least one host application, and to perform steps comprising:
assigning at least one of the storage media to a target media pool of media/drive validation;assigning at least one of the media drives to a target drive resource pool of the media/drive validation; andexecuting the media/drive validation by:
instructing the robotic assembly to move the at least one storage medium to the at least one media drive; andinstructing the at least one media drive to execute the media/drive validation using the at least one storage medium,wherein the assigning steps are performed in a manner that maintains visibility of the at least one storage medium by the at least one host application during the media/drive validation of the at least one storage medium and hides visibility of the at least one media drive from the at least one host application during the media/drive validation of the at least one media drive.