Creating Tapes Manually

To create virtual tapes manually using the Storage Gateway console

1. Open the Storage Gateway console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/storagegateway/home.

2. In the navigation pane, choose the Gateways tab.

3. Choose Create tapes to open the Create tapes pane.

4. For Gateway, choose a gateway. The tape is created for this gateway.

5. For Tape type, choose Standard to create standard virtual tapes. Choose WORM to create write once read many (WORM) virtual tapes. For more information, see Write Once, Read Many (WORM) Tape Protection .

6. For Number of tapes, choose the number of tapes that you want to create. For more information about tape quotas, see Amazon Storage Gateway quotas.

7. For Capacity, enter the size of the virtual tape that you want to create. Tapes must be larger than 100 GiB. For information about capacity quotas, see Amazon Storage Gateway quotas.

8. For Barcode prefix, enter the prefix that you want to prepend to the barcode of your virtual tapes.

   Note

   Virtual tapes are uniquely identified by a barcode, and you can add a prefix to the barcode. You can use a prefix to help identify your virtual tapes. The prefix must be uppercase letters (A–Z) and must be one to four characters long.

9. For Pool, choose Glacier Pool, Deep Archive Pool, or a custom pool that you have created. The pool determines the storage class in which your tape is stored when it is ejected by your backup software.

   • Choose Glacier Pool if you want to archive the tape in the S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval storage class. When your backup software ejects the tape, it is automatically archived in S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval. You use S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval for more active archives, where you can retrieve a tape typically within 3-5 hours. For more information, see Storage classes for archiving objects in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

   • Choose Deep Archive Pool if you want to archive the tape in the S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class. When your backup software ejects the tape, the tape is automatically archived in S3 Glacier Deep Archive. You use S3 Glacier Deep Archive for long-term data retention and digital preservation, where data is accessed once or twice a year. You can retrieve a tape archived in S3 Glacier Deep Archive typically within 12 hours. For more information, see Storage classes for archiving objects in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

   • Choose a custom pool, if any are available. You configure custom tape pools to use either Deep Archive Pool or Glacier Pool. Tapes are archived to the configured storage class when they are ejected by your backup software.

   If you archive a tape in S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval, you can move it to S3 Glacier Deep Archive later. For more information, see Moving tapes to S3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class.

   Note

   Tapes created before March 27, 2019, are archived directly in S3 Glacier Flexible Retrieval when your backup software ejects them.

10. (Optional) For Tags, choose Add new tag and enter a key and value to add tags to your tape. A tag is a case-sensitive key-value pair that helps you manage, filter, and search for your tapes.

11. Choose Create tapes.

12. In the navigation pane, choose Tape Library > Tapes to see your tapes. By default, this list displays up to 1,000 tapes at a time, but the searches that you perform apply to all of your tapes. You can use the search bar to find tapes that match a specific criteria, or to reduce the list to less than 1,000 tapes. When your list contains 1,000 tapes or fewer, you can then sort your tapes in ascending or descending order by various properties.