Any LTO tape, Cleaner and Diagnostic media that is used with an autoloader or a library will have an LTO Label for identification of the tape. After identification , the tape is loaded and unloaded from the slots to tape drive for read/write.
These LTO labels have human and machine readable parts for automation . Standalone drives in contrast don't have barcode readers and robotics , and the labels are not required.
An LTO label will have 2 parts
- A volume serial (VOLSER) number which is Human Readable ( length of 6 alphanumeric )
- A bar code for library to read ( VOLSER in barcode + LTO generation identifier)
At minimum you will need to provide the following information to us, to generate a label for you.
1. VOLSER ( serial number that you need )
Typically the first 3 places are taken by Alphabets, followed by numbers. In this case your maximum number of labels is 1,000 ( ABC000 to ABC999). Examples are PUR001, AUH234, XYZ345.
2. Tape Media Generation.
The last 2 digits of the Machine readable part are media identifier and must be correctly printed to correspond to your media type. The table below shows the media identifier for each kind of media and this can't be changed, its fixed for the generation - one code per Generation as follows
| Media | Identifier |
| LTO-1 | L1 |
| LTO-2 | L2 |
| LTO-3 | L3 |
| LTO-4 | L4 |
| LTO-5 | L5 |
| LTO-6 | L6 |
| LTO-7 | L7 |
| LTO-7 Type M | M8 |
| LTO-8 | L8 |
| LTO Cleaning | CU |
In addition to this, the following can also be customized
- Color Palette :Colors can be customized as Standard colors , or colors based on position or colors based on content.
- Barcode Orientation :Can be customized to be on top, bottom or rotated.
Ways to obtain Barcoded media
- Quantum and HPE both provide factory barcoded LTO tapes. This is one of the ways to obtain pre-labelled tapes that comes directly from Vendor. Most of the times, these tapes are taken without any specific serial number and the vendor ships a random serial number. They can be customized on demand too, the lead time is longer by 5 days if customized series is ordered.
- HPE barcode label pack is a pack of 100 data + 10 cleaning tapes and can be sticked to your tape media. Each pack has a unique never previously repeated sequence. They can't be customized.
- Get On Demand LTO Labels in the series you need from us. We are a Tri-optics partner for middle east , the same people who make labels for HP, IBM and QUANTUM. We provide customized high quality Tri optics labels on the same day of order.
