Product manual

42 Viper 200 LTO Product Manual

Theory of operation

This section describes operational theories used in the Viper 200 drive. It covers the

following topics:

• Track Layout

• Recording Method

• Data Buffer

• Data Integrity

• Data Compression

Track layout

Figure 23 summarizes the layout of data on an LTO tape.

Sub bands 1 through 6

(not shown)

Tape edge

Sub band 0

DATA

BAND

Servo band

Even # wrap

Odd # wrap

Even # wrap

Odd # wrap

Sub band 7

Beginning of

tape (BOT)

End of

tape (EOT)

Figure 23. Layout of tracks on LTO Ultrium tape

There are 384 data tracks on the LTO tape, numbered 0 through 383. Data track

383 is the track closest to the bottom edge of the tape (the reference edge). The

area between adjacent servo bands is a data band. There are 4 data bands, each of

which includes 96 data tracks. The data bands are numbered 2,0,1,3. Data band 2

is closest to the bottom edge of the tape.

A track group is a set of tracks that is recorded concurrently. The sets of 12 data

tracks in a data band are data sub bands. There are 8 data sub bands per data

band. The data tracks are accessed in a serpentine manner.