Initialisation

At XMA we have a variety of tape libraries and tape drives to initialise all current formats of tape cartridges.

Initialisation refers to the process during which application software writes a unique header to a tape. In client-server applications, typically the application software handles this task and there is no need to purchase initialised media. 

Historically it was generally only enterprise formats that were initialised however with the introduction of LTO4 with its huge capacity and software encryption more and more organisations are requesting this media to be supplied initialised.

In the MVS world, the tapes must often be initialised before use. Initialisation in general terms means to write a magnetic label on the tape. The magnetic label basically includes the information of the outside attached barcode label.

Additional information can be added during the process, if this is requested the customer must provide an initial sample. Initialisation depending on the tape and complexity of the initialisation format can save work time of approximately 30 seconds to 2 minutes per tape.