JP2001319399A - Magnetic tape library device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a magnetic tape library device capable of enhancing the reliability of the operation of inserting/pulling a magnetic tape medium into/out of a magnetic tape drive. SOLUTION: A bar code label 7 indicating manufacturing variance in the medium receiving ports 8 of magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d is adhered near the medium receiving ports 8 of the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d during manufacturing. The bar code label 7 is read by a bar code reader 13, and positioning correction of an accessor 2 and a picker mechanism part 6 is carried out by using read information.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a magnetic tape library device, and more particularly, to reading management information on manufacturing variations of a medium receiving port of an individual magnetic tape drive and correcting the positioning of an accessor and a picker mechanism. The present invention relates to a magnetic tape library device that improves the reliability of the operation of inserting and removing a magnetic tape medium into and from a magnetic tape drive.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of library apparatus, a technique relating to positioning correction of an accessor mechanism for carrying a medium to a predetermined position and inserting and removing the medium is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 10 (1998).
No. 162473 discloses a collective optical disk apparatus.

In the technique disclosed in the above publication, the presence or absence of a wall of a medium storage (cell) and a mounting frame of a drive (optical disk drive) (not shown) is determined by a reflection type sensor ( Position detection means), and compares the detected value with a reference value, and stores the difference as a correction value in a nonvolatile memory in the accessor control unit.

However, in the above-mentioned technology, the position of the accessor mechanism is corrected by measuring the error of the mounting position of the drive depending on the presence or absence of the above-mentioned wall, so that the drive caused by variations in various component accuracy, assembly adjustment accuracy and the like. The position error of the medium inlet of the drive in the manufacturing process cannot be grasped, and the position error of the medium inlet of the drive is not corrected.

In the library device described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-91930, a reflection type optical sensor and a bar code reader are provided in an accessor of a transfer robot, and a medium storage (cell) is scanned and the reflection type optical sensor is used. The presence or absence of a recording medium is detected, and if a recording medium is present, a barcode reader reads the barcode label affixed to the recording medium and stores the information in a medium management memory for accurate recording. A technology for collectively recognizing a storage position of a medium and medium identification information given to a recording medium is disclosed.

[0006] In the above-mentioned library apparatus, although the individual identification information of the recording medium is recorded on the bar code label attached to the recording medium, the information indicating the mechanical manufacturing error of the recording medium is not recorded. Therefore, the information read by the bar code reader cannot be used as the position correction of the accessor.

[0007] Therefore, in any of the above-mentioned disclosed technologies, when a maintenance person replaces a drive in the field, no correction is made for a manufacturing error in the position of the medium input port of the drive at the time of manufacturing. When the recording medium is inserted and ejected while being positioned with respect to the recording medium, the recording medium is displaced from the medium insertion port, and there is a disadvantage that a collision with the drive or rubbing occurs.

[0008]

As described above,
In the conventional library device, since the position of the accessor is not corrected for the position error of the media input port of the drive in the drive manufacturing process due to variations in various component accuracy, assembly adjustment accuracy, etc., the drive is replaced by maintenance in the field Due to the manufacturing error of the position of the drive's medium insertion port during manufacturing, when inserting and removing the recording medium with the drive by the accessor,
There is a problem in that the recording medium is displaced from the medium insertion slot, and the recording medium collides with or is rubbed against the drive, thereby causing a failure in the insertion / removal operation.

An object of the present invention is to affix a bar code label indicating a manufacturing variation of a media receiving port of an individual magnetic tape drive near a media receiving port of a magnetic tape drive, read the bar code label with a bar code reader, and read the bar code label. Another object of the present invention is to provide a magnetic tape library device in which the reliability of the operation of inserting and removing a magnetic tape medium into and from a magnetic tape drive is improved by performing positioning correction of an accessor and a picker mechanism using the information obtained.

[0010]

According to the present invention, there is provided a magnetic tape library apparatus comprising: a housing; a plurality of medium storages for storing and storing a plurality of magnetic tape media in the housing; Inserting and removing magnetic tape media between multiple magnetic tape drives for writing, a main rail fixed in the housing, an accessor supported on the main rail and moving on the main rail, and a media storage or a magnetic tape drive A picker mechanism mounted on the accessor, a device manager for controlling the operation of the accessor and the picker mechanism in accordance with an instruction from a host device, a maintenance panel used for operations during maintenance, a magnetic tape drive and a picker mechanism And a media receiving port of a magnetic tape drive in which a magnetic tape medium is inserted and removed. A bar code label attached to the side; and a bar code reader for reading the bar code label. The bar code label has bar code data indicating a manufacturing error of a medium receiving opening of the magnetic tape drive, The unit has means for performing positioning correction of the accessor and the picker mechanism using the barcode data.

The magnetic tape drive is mounted on a mounting rail movably provided on a mounting frame that houses the magnetic tape drive and covers the outside, and performs mounting and removing operations using the mounting rail as a guide. Features.

The bar code reader is mounted and fixed to a picker mechanism.

[0013] The bar code reader is characterized in that it is attached and fixed to a mounting bracket provided on a mounting frame for accommodating a magnetic tape drive.

[0014] The apparatus management section is characterized by having means for storing barcode data.

The maintenance panel is characterized in that, when the magnetic tape drive is replaced, an operation of inputting a setting change of the magnetic tape drive is performed, and the setting change information of the magnetic tape drive is notified to the device management unit.

[0016] The optical communication transmitting / receiving section has an optical communication transmitting section and an optical communication receiving section.

[0017] The optical communication transmitting section is characterized by comprising a light emitting diode.

[0018] The optical communication receiver is characterized by comprising a phototransistor.

The apparatus management unit activates the optical communication transmission / reception unit to transmit / receive address information of the magnetic tape medium, matches the address information, and confirms the match.

The bar code label is attached to the magnetic tape drive as bar code data when the magnetic tape drive is manufactured.

[0021]

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view showing a first embodiment of a magnetic tape library apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG.
FIG. 3 is a schematic view showing a cross section AA of FIG. 1, and FIG.
FIG. 4 (a) is a magnetic tape drive installation diagram showing
FIG. 4B is an enlarged plan view of the picker mechanism 6 in FIG.
It is an enlarged front view of the picker mechanism part 6.

Referring to FIGS. 1 to 4, a magnetic tape library device 50 of the present invention includes a housing 20, a plurality of medium storages 3 for storing and storing a plurality of magnetic tape media 19 in the housing 20, Reading / writing data to / from the magnetic tape medium 19
A plurality of magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d for performing writing
And a main rail 21 fixed to the inside of the housing 20, an accessor 2 supported on the main rail 21 and moving on the main rail 21, and a magnetic tape medium 19 between the medium storage 3 or the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d. A picker mechanism 6 mounted on the accessor 2 for performing insertion / removal, a device management unit 4 for controlling operations of the accessor 2 and the picker mechanism 6 according to a command from a higher-level device (not shown), and magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d When a change is made to the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d, a maintenance panel 5 used for an operation at the time of maintenance so as to notify the device management unit 4 of the setting change information, and a magnetic tape drive 1a to 1d Optical communication transmitting section 9b, each of which is provided with a light emitting diode
And a drive-side optical communication transmitting / receiving section 9 comprising an optical communication receiving section 9a comprising a phototransistor, and an optical communication transmitting section 17 comprising a light emitting diode provided in the picker mechanism section 6.
b and the optical communication receiving / receiving section 17a composed of a phototransistor, and the picker-side optical communication transmitting / receiving section 17 and the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1c for inserting and removing the magnetic tape medium 19.
Magnetic tape drive 1a near the medium receiving port 8 of 1d
1d, and a bar code reader 13 attached to and fixed to the picker mechanism 6 and reading the bar code label 7. The bar code label 7 is composed of the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d.
The apparatus management unit 4 has barcode data indicating a manufacturing error of the medium receiving port 8 of 1d, stores the barcode data, and performs positioning correction of the accessor 2 and the picker mechanism unit 6 using the barcode data. It is configured as follows.

Further, the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d
The magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d are housed on a mounting rail 12 movably provided on a mounting frame 11 shaped to cover and cover the outside, and the mounting and removing operations are performed using the mounting rail 12 as a guide. ing.

Next, the operation of the magnetic tape library device 50 configured as described above will be described with reference to FIGS.

The operation when the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d of the magnetic tape library device 50 operating in the field are replaced or when the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d are newly installed will be described below.

Referring to FIGS. 1 to 4, first, when a field maintenance person replaces or newly mounts the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d, the mounting rail 12 is pulled out in the X direction in FIG. Magnetic tape drive 1a on top
Place 1d.

The loaded magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d
Together with the mounting rail 12 is pushed into the inside of the magnetic tape library device 50 to be installed in the mounting frame 11.

The magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d are located at predetermined positions.
After installing and installing, the maintenance staff operates the maintenance panel 5 and
When the replacement of the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d or the input that the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d are newly installed is input, the maintenance panel 5 checks the input information and knows that the settings of the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d have been changed. Magnetic tape drive 1a-
The device management unit 4 is notified of the setting change information of 1d.

Upon receiving the notification that the setting has been changed, the device management section 4 changes the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d.
Is issued to move the accessor 2 and the picker mechanism 6 to a position corresponding to the position.

Upon receiving the command, the accessor 2 and the hand mechanism unit 6 move to the designated location and, after positioning, inform the device management unit 4 that the movement operation has been completed (accessor 2).
The positioning by moving the hand mechanism 6 is performed using a positioning flag (not shown), but detailed description is omitted).

When the device management unit 4 confirms that the movement has been completed, it activates the bar code reader 13, and the activated bar code reader 13 transmits the data to the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1a.
The barcode data of the barcode label 7 affixed in the vicinity of the medium receiving port 8 of d is read, and the read barcode data of the barcode label 7 is notified to the device management unit 4. The unit 4 stores the transmitted barcode data of the barcode label 7 in an internal nonvolatile memory (not shown).

Next, after the replacement of the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d or the work of newly mounting the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d is completed, and after the above-described operation is completed, a higher-level device (not shown) to which the magnetic tape library device 50 is connected is connected. Is notified to the device management unit 4, or the command input by the maintenance staff via the maintenance panel 5, the device management unit 4 analyzes the command and sends the magnetic tape medium 19 to the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d. In the case of an instruction to exchange data by inserting / extracting the bar code, the stored bar code data is called.

The device management unit 4 includes a magnetic tape drive 1a
A command to move and position the accessor 2 and the picker mechanism 6 to the medium receiving port 8 to 1d is issued to the accessor 2 and the picker mechanism 6. At this time, the position where the positioning is stopped is determined by the barcode label 7. Is specified using the barcode data of (1) to (3) in consideration of the correction value of the manufacturing error of the medium receiving port 8 of the magnetic tape drive 1a to 1d.

The accessor 2 and the picker mechanism 6 which have received the command to move and position move to the designated position, stop positioning, and inform the device manager 4 that the movement has been completed.
Then, the device management unit 4 issues a command to the picker mechanism unit 6 to insert and remove the magnetic tape medium 19, and the picker mechanism unit 6 that has received the insertion / removal command uses the picker hand 6a to send the medium to the medium receiving port 8. , The operation of inserting and removing the magnetic tape medium 19 with the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d.

Next, the device management section 4 activates the drive-side optical communication transmitting / receiving section 9 and the picker-side optical communication transmitting / receiving section 17, and
The address information of the magnetic tape medium 19 that has been exchanged by insertion / removal is transmitted from both directions of the optical communication transmitting units 9b and 17b, and the transmitted address information is received by the optical communication receiving units 17a and 9a, respectively. Of the magnetic tape medium 19 to be transferred.

If the address information in the optical communication receivers 17a and 9a matches, the processing is continued, and if they do not match, error processing is performed.

As described above, the magnetic tape library device 50 according to the above-mentioned embodiment
The bar code labels 7 indicating the manufacturing variations of the medium receiving openings 8 of the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d
d, the bar code label 13 is read by a bar code reader 13, and the read information is used to correct the positioning of the accessor 2 and the picker mechanism 6, so that the magnetic tape drive 1a can be used in the field. Also, when the maintenance exchange of the magnetic tape medium 19 is performed, the reliability of the operation of inserting and removing the magnetic tape medium 19 into and from the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d can be improved.

Next, a second embodiment of the magnetic tape library apparatus of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings (the same components as those of the first embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals). ).

FIG. 5A is a schematic plan view showing the periphery of a magnetic tape drive of the magnetic tape library device according to the second embodiment, and FIG. 5B is a schematic front view thereof.

In the first embodiment, the bar code reader 1
3 is fixed to the picker mechanism 6, whereas the second embodiment is characterized in that the barcode reader 13 is provided at a position facing each barcode label 7 of the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d. Only the differences will be described, and the points different from the first embodiment will be mainly described below.

Referring to FIGS. 5A and 5B, a bar code reader 13 for reading the bar code label 7 is shown.
Is mounted and fixed to a mounting bracket 14 provided on a mounting frame 11 of the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d.

Next, the operation of the thus configured magnetic tape library apparatus will be described.

The bar code reader 13 is started, and the started bar code reader 13 is connected to the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1a.
When reading the bar code data of the bar code label 7 attached near the medium receiving port 8 of 1d, in the first embodiment, the accessor 2 and the picker mechanism 6
Is moved to a position facing the bar code label 7 attached to the vicinity of the medium receiving port 8 of the magnetic tape drives 1a to 1d, and is positioned in the second embodiment. For each 1d,
Since the barcode reader 13 is fixedly installed at a position facing each barcode label 7, it is not necessary to move and move the accessor 2 and the picker mechanism 6 to perform positioning.

The other operations are the same as those in the first embodiment, and the description is omitted.

In the magnetic tape library device 50 of the first embodiment, the bar code reader 13 is installed in the picker mechanism 6, and when the bar code reader 13 fails, the picker mechanism 6 operates normally. Even in the possible state, the operation of the accessor 2 must be temporarily stopped to perform maintenance replacement. However, in the second embodiment, when the barcode reader 13 fails, the operation of the accessor 2 is not hindered. This has the effect that maintenance and replacement can be easily performed.

[0047]

As described above, the magnetic tape library apparatus of the present invention affixes a bar code label indicating the manufacturing variation of the medium receiving port of each magnetic tape drive to the vicinity of the medium receiving port of the magnetic tape drive at the time of manufacturing. The bar code label is read by a bar code reader, and the read information is used to correct the positioning of the accessor and the picker mechanism. There is an effect that the reliability of the operation of inserting and removing the magnetic tape drive can be improved.

In the magnetic tape library apparatus according to the second embodiment, a bar code reader is fixedly installed at a position facing each bar code label in each magnetic tape drive. When a failure occurs, there is an effect that maintenance replacement can be easily performed without hindering the operation of the accessor.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view showing a first embodiment of a magnetic tape library device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a cross section AA in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a view showing arrow B in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4A is an enlarged plan view of a picker mechanism in FIG. 1, and FIG. 4B is an enlarged front view.

FIG. 5 (a) is a schematic plan view around a magnetic tape drive showing a second embodiment of the magnetic tape library device of the present invention, and FIG. 5 (b) is a schematic front view.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1a to 1d Magnetic tape drive 2 Accessor 3 Medium storage 4 Device management unit 5 Maintenance panel 6 Picker mechanism unit 6a Picker hand 7 Barcode label 8 Medium receiving port 9 Drive side optical communication transmitting / receiving unit 9a Optical communication receiving unit 9b Optical communication transmitting unit 11 Mounting frame 12 Mounting rail 13 Bar code reader 14 Mounting bracket 17 Picker side optical communication transmitting / receiving section 17a Optical communication receiving section 17b Optical communication transmitting section 19 Magnetic tape medium 20 Housing 21 Main rail 50 Magnetic tape library device

Claims (11)

[Claims] 1. A housing, a plurality of media storages for storing and storing a plurality of magnetic tape media in the housing, a plurality of magnetic tape drives for reading / writing data from / to the magnetic tape media, A main rail fixed in a housing, an accessor supported on the main rail and moving on the main rail, and mounted on the accessor for inserting and removing the magnetic tape medium between the medium storage or the magnetic tape drive. Picker mechanism to be
A device management unit for controlling the operations of the accessor and the picker mechanism unit in accordance with a command from a host device, a maintenance panel used for operations during maintenance, the magnetic tape drive and the picker mechanism unit; An optical communication transmitting and receiving unit, a barcode label attached to and near the medium receiving port of the magnetic tape drive in which the magnetic tape medium is inserted and withdrawn, and a barcode reader that reads the barcode label; The code label is
The apparatus has a barcode data indicating a manufacturing error of the medium receiving port of the magnetic tape drive, the device management unit,
A magnetic tape library device comprising means for performing positioning correction of the accessor and the picker mechanism using the barcode data. 2. The magnetic tape drive is mounted on a mounting rail movably provided on a mounting frame that houses the magnetic tape drive and covers the outside, and mounts and removes the mounting rail as a guide. 2. The magnetic tape library device according to claim 1, wherein 3. The magnetic tape library device according to claim 1, wherein the bar code reader is attached and fixed to the picker mechanism. 4. The magnetic tape library device according to claim 1, wherein the bar code reader is mounted and fixed to a mounting bracket provided on the mounting frame that houses the magnetic tape drive. 5. The magnetic tape library device according to claim 1, wherein the device management unit has a unit for storing the barcode data. 6. The maintenance panel according to claim 1, wherein when the magnetic tape drive is replaced, an operation for inputting a setting change of the magnetic tape drive is performed, and the maintenance panel notifies the device management unit of the setting change information of the magnetic tape drive. The magnetic tape library device according to claim 1, wherein 7. The magnetic tape library device according to claim 1, wherein the optical communication transmitting / receiving unit has an optical communication transmitting unit and an optical communication receiving unit. 8. The magnetic tape library device according to claim 7, wherein said optical communication transmitting unit comprises a light emitting diode. 9. The magnetic tape library device according to claim 7, wherein said optical communication receiving unit comprises a phototransistor. 10. The apparatus management unit according to claim 1, wherein the device communication unit activates the optical communication transmission / reception unit to transmit / receive address information of the magnetic tape medium, and matches the address information to confirm the match. Or the magnetic tape library device according to 7. 11. The magnetic tape library device according to claim 1, wherein the barcode label is attached to the magnetic tape drive as the barcode data when the magnetic tape drive is manufactured.