Within this dialog, you can specify the tape devices and the options for tape access.
In field Tape device(s), enter name of tape drive. The 1. tape drive detected is Tape0, 2. is Tape1 etc. If you have only 1 tape drive connected to your system, specify Tape0. Alternatively, you can specify the SCSI address directly, in one of the forms Scsii, Scsiai, Scsiail, Scsiabil, where i is the SCSI id, a is adapter address (0=1. SCSI adapter), l is SCSI lun address, b is bus address if one adapter has several SCSI buses. For example, if you have 1 SCSI bus, and tape drive is at SCSI id 4, device name would be Scsi4. If you have IDE and SCSI on the same computer, the system might assign a virtual SCSI address to the IDE bus, and the real SCSI bus with the tape drive attached receives busnr 1. The device name would be Scsi14 in this case.
Option Use Removable Storage Manager for Mount (for Windows 2003/XP/2000) specifies, that reserving tape drive and mounting tape is handled by the Removable Storage Manager service. If this is set, field Tape device(s) becomes Tape device type where you can select device type of tape drive (e.g. 4mm DDS, 8mm etc).
Option Do not rewind and unload tape when freed specifies, if Stratesave rewinds and unloads tape after use.
The check box Use SCSI autoloader/media changer directly allows tape mounting by automatic media-changer (robot). This will control the media changer directly, while option Use Removable Storage Manager for Mount specifies that media changer is managed by RSM. It is normally prefered to have RSM handle autoloaders.
If checkbox Wait for free tape device is set, backup will wait until a device becomes available. This option is currently unsupported for Stratesave standard.
Checkbox Check tape in drive before showing mount-dialog is only valid when options Use Removable Storage Manager for Mount (Win 2003/XP/2000) and Use SCSI autoloader/media changer directly are not set. It specifies, that tape in drive is checked first, and "please mount" dialog is only shown, if the tape is not already in the drive. If checkbox is not set, please-mount-dialog is shown without checking tape drive.
Option Retension tape every time it is mounted winds tape forward to the end and backward again at mount time, to increase tape readability and writability. This operation is not supported by all tape drives. If Erase tape before file will be written at position 1 is set, entire tape will be erased, before writing starts from beginning of tape. This operation also increases tape read and write capabilities. It is very time consuming (several hours for some tapes).
No SCSI Passthrough specifies that the drive is always controlled by the commands from Windows tape driver, even if it's a SCSI drive. Stratesave can control SCSI drives directly with SCSI commands. If you encounter problems with backing up to your SCSI drive or to optimize backup speed, setting or clearing this option might be helpful.
Initialize media during backup automatically when needed can only be used with Removable Storage Manager (RSM). If set, Stratesave automatically takes tapes from the free media pool when needed. It is not necessary to explicitely initialize the volumes before starting the backup.
Hardware Compression On/Off during backup specifies if tape's hardware compression should be turned off or on during the backup. If both are not set, Stratesave does not change hardware compression. When hardware compression is changed during backup, a notification line will be shown in display Window 'Messages'. A notification is also given if Stratesave fails to turn Hardware compression on or off, for example because the tape drive does not support hardware compression. Tape Hardware compression is usually very fast compression, and an alternative to Stratesave's compression. If Stratesave Backup compression is used or backup encryption, nothing will be gained with tape hardware compression, data might even expand. So it's better to turn tape hardware compression off in this case.
Create Tape log messages (for debugging) logs tape operations to "Messages" display. This can only be useful for debugging purposes, and is normally not turned on.
Section SCSI Autoloader options pops up, if Use SCSI autoloader/media changer directly is set. Under Autoloader device, specify the device name as Changern. Changer0 stands for first media changer in the system. Alternatively, the SCSI address can be specified directly (in the form Scsi..., as described above). Stratesave currently supports only SCSI tape media changers and accesses them directly with SCSI commands. If autoloader is specified as Changern, the corresponding driver must be installed on the system. If you don't have the driver installed, specify the SCSI address. Under Tape drive(s) served by autoloader, specify the tape drives connected to the media changer, in the order they are connected to the media changer. Specify the tape drive with lowest media changer slot number first in list. If Tape0 and Tape1 are connected to media changer, and Tape0 has lower media changer slot-nr, specify Tape0,Tape1. In most cases, enter into this field the same tape drive name as in Tape device(s). Autoloaders are now usually controlled by RSM (with option Use Removable Storage Manager for Mount (Win 2K/XP), where these options are not used.
OK or Cancel quit dialog, OK confirms and Cancel ignores all changes.
See also: Backup with Autoloader