Dear all experts,
I have a LTO3 tape drive and thinking of upgrade to LTO4 drive.
Before we proceed to upgrade, I have 1 question to ask.
As I will use the backup tape to restore into other server (pSeries p550), I have the problem of if I backup in LTO4 tape in future, how can I restore the LTO4 tape into server (pSeries p550) with only LTO3 Drive?

My question is
1) Can I use command "tcopy /dev/rmt0 /dev/rmt1"
when /dev/rmt0 is LTO4 tape (backup from p570 server using LTO4 drive)
and /dev/rmt1 is LTO3 tape

2) If #1 is ok, can the LTO3 drive read the LTO3 tape? (which been tcopy from LTO4 tape)

3) If #2 is ok, can the LTO3 tape be restored into p550 server with LTO3 Drive?

Thanks.

Typically, in any mixed environment, you're stuck with using the format of the lowest compatible drive/media - LTO3 - even when you're using LTO4 drives on some of your boxes - since the LTO3 cannot read LTO4 formatted tapes - but a LTO4 drive can format LTO4 tapes in LTO3 mode. Once all media & drives are at higher format level, you can change that option to match full capacity.

Hope that helps
zxmaus