Tape storage system including a plurality of tape recording devices

Abstract

Disclosed is a tape recording device system wherein tape recording density can be maintained and writing performance can be improved in respect of write requests for a plurality of data items accompanying a large number of synchronisation requests from a host. This system is a tape storage system including two or more tape drives in which respective tapes are mounted and having buffers divided into segments of fixed length; the tape storage system is connected with a host that sends synchronisation requests at a prescribed timing and a plurality of data items to these tape drives. This tape recording system is provided with: a tape drive that receives a plurality of data items delivered from the host to which it is connected and that, when a buffer segment is filled with accumulated data, writes this accumulated data onto a tape; and another tape drive which is connected with the first-mentioned tape drive and receives a plurality of data items delivered from the host through this first-mentioned tape drive, and exports to a tape a prescribed number of data items accumulated in a segment at the timing with which a synchronisation request is received.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a magnetic tape storage system including a plurality of magnetic tape recording devices which improve writing performance in the case where the frequency of writing and synchronizing requests for a plurality of data from a host is high. Background technique [0002] When a tape recording device (hereinafter referred to as tape drive, drive) writes data on a tape medium (hereinafter referred to as tape or tape medium), the drive does not immediately write the data transferred from the host. The drive temporarily stores it in a buffer inside the drive and does not begin writing until a sufficient amount of data has accumulated. [0003] figure 1 Indicates the correspondence between the buffer and the written data (data set) on the tape. [0004] The buffer 120 forms a ring divided by fixed-length segments (segments) 20 . A plurality of variable-length data 10 transferred from the host is sequentially accumulated in seg...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

In this writing method, the data is written to the tape when the data set interval is large, which reduces the recording density of the tape.

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