Firmware
Besides requiring drivers, LTO drives themselves rely on firmware. As a LTO drive is basically a computer, consider the firmware to be its operation system. This firmware is just as much under active development as are the drivers, and should therefore not ignored when troubleshooting. When you run into issue, but all drivers are installed correctly, make sure your firmware is up to date.
Note: firmware is vendor-specific. Most modern LTO drives are made by IBM. For Tandberg drives and older Quantum or HPE drives, please refer your reseller.
Most modern Quantum drives are actually IBM drives, so you can use the ITDT process described below to update your firmware. Quantum's firmware versions are available for download here:
Colloquially known as HP, your drive may be either a real HP drive or a rebranded IBM. Preflight Checks will show you the firmware version number which will hold the clue to being an IBM drive or not; if it's four characters long with the first one a letter, chances are it's an IBM. If not, call your reseller as obtaining firmware for older drives is a drag. If it's IBM, you can use continue to read along.
To update your IBM LTO drive's firmware, first you install ITDT - IBM's LTO utility - and then you update the firmware using ITDT.
1. Download IBM's
ITDT tool: https://downloads.hedge.video/canister/firmware/ibm/itdt/install_itdt_macos.zip2. Open
Terminal.app, then enter this single command followed by [Enter]:~/Downloads/install_itdt_macos3. An alert will open. Click
Cancel.
4. You'll first need to allow the installation. Go to
System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General.
5. Click the
Allow Anyway button (no need to click the Lock icon 🔒 first).6. Go back to Terminal, then enter the same command again followed by
[Enter]:~/Downloads/install_itdt_macos7. Another alert opens, this time click
Open.
8. Go back to Terminal, and input this command followed by
[Enter]:~/ITDT/itdt9. Type
L, hit [Enter], then I, and again [Enter].ITDT is now set up.
Next, the firmware itself:
1. Download the latest firmware for your unit. Qualstar conveniently maintains a full list of available firmware on their website:
If your LTO drive is housed inside a Thunderbolt device (i.e. mLogic, MagStor, Symply, OWC) use the
SAS versions, not the FC (Fiber Channel) versions.2. Move the downloaded firmware file into
~/ITDT/input.- Not sure how to get to that folder? In Finder, hit
Shift-Command-H.
Next, close ALL apps you use for LTO purposes, and unmount any tapes.
3. Go back to Terminal (ITDT is still open) and enter the following commands to open the connection to your tape device, and upload the firmware:
u, then[Enter]1(one, not el), then[Enter]- If you have just one tape device,
tape0is your device name so just hit[Enter]four times.
If you have multiple LTOs connected, the easiest way to make sure you're updating the correct LTO device is to power off the other units. Alternatively, you can look up your device's SCSI ID in
System Information > SAS. In this example screenshot, the device ID is 0:
SCSI Device ID is 0
71, then[Enter].- If you properly copied the firmware into the
inputfolder, you'll see a view like this listing your firmware file in slot0: -
- Select the firmware with
0and anxwill appear next to it.
- Continue with
C, then[Enter]and wait until done.
- A successful upgrade will have a
PASSEDstatus:
- Hit
[Enter]to return to the Tape Util menu.
4. When back in the Tape Util menu close the connection to the tape:
- Type
2, then[Enter]twice.
5. Now you can quit ITDT:
q then [Enter]6. You can safely close Terminal now:
Command-Q.Last modified 2d ago