READING AND WRITING A HEADER AND RECORD ON TAPE

• US 20170139946A1
• Filed: 11/12/2015
• Published: 05/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kawamura, Kousei, Matsui, Sosuke, Masuda, Kohichi, Tsuda, Takahiro, Oishi, Yutaka
• Granted Patent: US 10,380,070 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1744 using compression, e.g. sparse files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0613 in relation to throughput
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0682 Tape device
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 5/00817 on longitudinal tracks only, e.g. for serpentine format recording
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 7/30 Compression speech analysis-synthesis for redundancy reduction G10L19/00; for image communication H04N; Expansion; Suppression of unnecessary data, e.g. redundancy reduction
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 7/6052 Synchronisation of encoder and decoder

Abstract

As disclosed herein, a computer implemented method for reading a record on a storage device includes reading, by a processor, the record from the storage device, and generating, by a processor, a header corresponding to the record. The method further includes adding, by a processor, header information corresponding to the metadata to the header, and providing, by a processor, the header and the record to a host. Also disclosed herein, a computer implemented method for writing a record on a storage device includes receiving, by a processor, a header and the record from a host to be written to the storage device, and determining, by a processor, metadata included in header information corresponding to the header. The method further includes determining, by a processor, a write behavior specified by the metadata, and writing, by a processor, the metadata and the record to the storage device according to the write behavior.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for reading a record on a storage device, the method comprising:

reading, by a processor, the record from the storage device;

generating, by a processor, a header corresponding to the record;

determining, by a processor, metadata corresponding to the record;

adding, by a processor, header information corresponding to the metadata to the header; and

providing, by a processor, the header and the record to a host.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein contents of the record are compressed.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the header comprises eight bits used to represent the header information.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising initializing the header to all zero values to indicate an absence of any metadata.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the header information can identify more than one occurrence of metadata.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising converting the metadata to the header information.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the storage device is a tape storage medium and the metadata is tape metadata.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining if a bypass mode is enabled for a tape drive.

9. A computer implemented method for writing a record on a storage device, the method comprising:

receiving, by a processor, a header and the record from a host to be written to the storage device;

determining, by a processor, metadata included in header information corresponding to the header;

determining, by a processor, a write behavior specified by the metadata; and

writing, by a processor, the metadata and the record to the storage device according to the write behavior.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein contents of the record are compressed.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the header comprises eight bits used to represent the header information.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein determining the write behavior comprises converting the header information to the metadata.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the header information identifies zero or more metadata occurrences.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the header information comprising all zero values indicates an absence of any metadata.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising determining if a bypass mode is enabled for a tape drive.

16. A computer program product for reading a record on a storage device, the program product comprising:

one or more computer readable storage media and program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions executable by a computer to perform;

reading, by a processor, the record from the storage device;

generating, by a processor, a header corresponding to the record;

determining, by a processor, metadata corresponding to the record;

adding, by a processor, header information corresponding to the metadata to the header; and

providing, by a processor, the header and the record to a host.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein contents of the record are compressed.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the header comprises eight bits used to represent the header information.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the program instructions comprise instructions for initializing the header to all zero values to indicate an absence of any metadata.

20. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the header information can identify more than one occurrence of metadata.