Enabling and disabling persistent reservations

What tape reservations are

Because multiple filers can share access to one tape drive or medium changer, it is advantageous to prevent more than one filer from accessing a tape drive or a medium changer at a time. Tape reservation solves this problem by enabling SCSI-persistent reservations for all Fibre-Channel-attached tape drives and medium changers. These reservations provide a method for tape drives and medium changers to accept commands from only one filer at a time.

These reservations cannot be enabled or disabled on an individual device basis.

Why tape reservations are not automatically enabled

Because not all tape drives and medium changers implement SCSI-persistent reservations correctly, this option is disabled by default to prevent problems from occurring with these devices.

How to enable persistent reservations

To turn on persistent reservations, complete the following step.

Step	Action
1	Enter the following command: `options tape.persistent_reservations on`

When to disable persistent reservations

Enabling this option may cause problems if tape drives or medium changers do not work properly. If tape commands report the device is reserved when no other filers are using the device, this option should be disabled.

How to disable persistent reservations

To turn off persistent reservations, complete the following step.

Step	Action
1	Enter the following command: `options tape.persistent_reservations off`