User's Manual

hp StorageWorks File System Extender User Guide 91
Skipping media formatting
In certain cases, a medium only needs to be initialized in order to be used in the FSE implementation, and
the formatting step can be skipped. This can be done for the following media:
• new or already used LTO media
These media support only one medium volume and do not need partitioning.
• other media that have been used in the FSE implementation, if the layout of medium volumes on the
medium will not change.
The layout includes the number of data volumes and the presence and position of the system volume on
the medium. For details, see ”FSE medium volumes” on page 86.
Once the medium is formatted, it becomes an FSE medium, and you need to initialize the medium volumes
on it.
Initializing media
After formatting, an FSE medium needs to be initialized. Initialization is the second step of the media
preparation for use in the FSE implementation. For each medium volume on the FSE medium, initialization
labels its header and adds a corresponding medium volume entry to the Resource Management Database.
NOTE: The media that will be used for storing FSE backups (backup media) should not be initialized. The
FSE backup process rejects initialized media to prevent unintentional overwriting of the FSE user data.
For more information on backup media specifics, see ”Backup media management” on page 175.
A medium is initialized using the following command:
If particular medium has already been used in the FSE implementation or contains certain types of data,
you must use forced initialization to initialize it. The following command initiates forced initialization for a
medium:
For more information on the fsemedium command, see the FSE Command-Line Reference.
The following table helps you determine what kind of initialization is allowed for different medium volume
types identified by FSE.
FSE volumes with no valid FSE user data NO YES
FSE volumes with valid FSE user data NO NO
Medium contents Type of formatting
Regular (--format) Forced (--format --force)
fsemedium --init Barcode
fsemedium --init Barcode --force
Medium volume type Types of initialization
Regular (--init) Forced (--init --force)
Blank (new) YES YES
Unknown (contains data of unknown format) YES YES
Tar volume NO YES
ECMA/ANSI volume NO YES
FSE volume with no valid FSE user data NO YES
FSE volume with valid FSE user data NO NO