Hello, I have a standalone IBMi (without HMC, without VIOS), with a client partition, it works fine but I plan to create another client partition, and I have a single tape drive, how do I move this tape drive between both partitions? Or do I need to get another tape drive? All the best.

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Miguel Peralta
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Dear Miguel 

The answer depends what connection type is used to connect  the tape device to IBM i.  Is it SAS or SAN fiber?   For SAS, you can configure virtual tape for the client IBM i LPAR.  If it is SAN fiber, a convenient way is to use NPIV but this requires VIOS. So, you end up having to use virtual tape anyway.  This involves configuring vSCSI host and client and this requires HMC.   This following information should help guide you how to configure hosted virtual tape for IBM i LPAR :

Requirements for Virtual Tape in i Client Partitions at  https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/requirements-virtual-tape-i-client-partitions 

Client virtual devices (optical and tape) at  https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.4?topic=storage-client-virtual-devices-optical-tape

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Chance favors only the prepared mind.
-- Louis Pasteur
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Satid S.
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Hi Miguel,

  Client LPARs connect to tape from host LPAR through NWSD. You can define the same tape for various LPAR's but it must be varied on in just one of them.

Best regards,

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Nicolae Chirea
System Architect
Seidor Iberia
Madrid/Spain
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