dance of the media serial numbers (using LOG SENSE)

Kevin D Butt kdbutt at us.ibm.com
Tue Oct 29 12:47:19 PST 2002


* From the T10 Reflector (t10 at t10.org), posted by:
* "Kevin D Butt" <kdbutt at us.ibm.com>
*

It is true that tape vendors have means of retrieving the Volume Label.  It
is, however, done in a vendor specific manner.  IBM tape drives use the
vendor specific portion of the Request Sense data.

Kevin D. Butt
Fibre Channel & SCSI Architect
IBM Tape Microcode,
6TYA, 9000 S. Rita Rd., Tucson, AZ  85744
Tie-line 321; Office: 520-799-5280, Lab: 799-2869, Fax: 799-4138, Email:
kdbutt at us.ibm.com


                                                                                                                                   
                      "Rob Haydt"                                                                                                  
                      <robhay at windows.mic        To:       <t10 at t10.org>                                                           
                      rosoft.com>                cc:       "Emily Hill" <emhill at windows.microsoft.com>                             
                      Sent by:                   Subject:  dance of the media serial numbers (using LOG SENSE)                     
                      owner-t10 at t10.org                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                   
                      10/29/2002 12:20 PM                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                   



* From the T10 Reflector (t10 at t10.org), posted by:
* "Rob Haydt" <robhay at windows.microsoft.com>
*
At the last t10 meeting, we were instructed to investigate the LOG SENSE
(section 7.6) command for retrieving media serial numbers. Apparently, tape
vendors do this sort of thing "all the time" (is this true?). After some
internal discussion, this would seem to meet our needs.

As I read SPC3, implementing LOG SENSE doesn't require implementing any
other command (like LOG SELECT, section 7.5). A new section will need to be
added to LOG PARAMETERS (section 8.2) for the retrieving media serial
numbers. It would probably be good to specify that serial number related
parameters MAY NOT be set or modified using LOG SENSE or LOG SELECT.
Interaction with devices that already implement LOG SENSE/SELECT is also an
area of concern.

The questions that come to mind are:

1. Is it correct that LOG SENSE can be implemented without implementing LOG
SELECT?
2. Would implementing LOG SENSE be inappropriate or extremely difficult for
ATAPI devices?
3. Will existing ATAPI devices break if they receive a LOG SENSE command?
4. Will existing LOG SENSE/SELECT implementations break if we add the media
serial number support there?
5. Is there some compelling reason to take a simpler approach?

Yet another media serial number proposal will be forthcoming shortly,
-rob

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