Dell PowerVault 114x - Manual

1
Linear Tape File System Single Drive Edition (LTFS SDE) Best Practices
Content obtained by permission from “Optimizing LTFS Usage” whitepaper by Shawn O.
Brume, Sc.D, IBM, United States
Abstract
With the introduction of the Linear Tape File System (LTFS), a new dimension of capability
and usability has been opened up for the tape storage environments. While the usability of
the tape drive in general is improved to the level of using a USB flash drive, the
misconception that the tape drive storage on LTFS will work exactly like a disk drive is not
completely accurate. This white paper will help to clarify some of the misconceptions and
introduce operational considerations not yet considered.
LTFS Definition
LTFS is a self- describing capability for tape drives that is enabled by partitioning. The tape
partitioning allows an XML index to be stored on a small partition for fast access and ease of
update and the second partition to contain data files. LTFS is supported on LTO5 and LTO6
tape drives only. See figure 1 below for the partition structure.
Figure 1 – LTFS Partitions
Files are saved to the tape and corresponding metadata about the files are also written to
tape. See Figure 2 below for a simple 3 file example.