Nec Corporation

Muneyuki Yoshikawa

Makoto Nakajima

Hajime Nonaka

Yoshiaki Mori

Yuuki Hayakawa

A first system adaptation unit of magnetic tape drive apparatus communicates with a read/write request source based on a method adapted to a file system. A second system adaptation unit communicates data with the read/write request source based on a method adapted to a designated system other than the file system. A control unit allows the first system adaptation unit to be in a ready state when a format of a magnetic tape to be read and written is adapted to the file system and allows otherwise the first system adaptation unit to be in a not-ready state. The control unit deceives the read/write request source as if the first system adaptation unit is in the ready state even when the first system adaptation unit is in the not-ready state as well as the ready state.

Magnetic tape drive apparatus, magnetic tape drive system, and magnetic tape drive method

To provide a virtual tape device to reduce power consumption by utilizing a disk array device conforming to MAID. Two or more disk devices are divided into an information managing disk group whose power is kept on at all times and to two or more recording disk groups whose power is turned on/off as necessary when managing data. The virtual tape device includes: a volume information managing part which manages positions of virtual tapes allotted to storage areas of the recording disk groups; and a data managing part which rearranges, in the recording disk group whose power is on, the virtual tape for storing the data to the recording disk group whose power is off based on writing/reading information stored in the information managing disk group and positional information of the virtual tapes, and executes a control to write backup data to the recording disk group whose power is on.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Muneyuki Yoshikawa