Installing external tape drives Recording Drive Information

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•Data with little redundancy, such as executable programs, are compressed the least.

Media Recognition System (DDS-4 Drives Only)

Using non-DDS media may appear to give satisfactory results, but the inferior specifications of such
media can cause data-integrity problems. To avoid these problems, the external tape drive provides
a media-recognition system (MRS) feature that determines whether tape cartridges conform to the
DDS tape standard.
By default, MRS is enabled. With this setting, the drive:
•Reads from and writes to MRS media.
•Reads from but does not write to non-MRS media.
If you disable MRS, the drive reads from and writes to MRS and non-MRS media.
NOTE: MRS is not available with external DAT 72 drives.

Power-On Self-Test

By default, the external tape drive responds to SCSI commands only after it successfully completes
the Power-On Self-Test (about 5 seconds). If you do not want the drive to perform this diagnostic
when it powers-up, disable the Power-On Self-Test.

Host Operating System

By default, the external tape drive is configured for a Microsoft Windows 98/Me/XP/NT/2000/
2003 Server operating system.
Recording Drive Information
After you review and, if necessary, change the drive’s default settings, record the information.