Initializing Volumes

In BRMS you usually need to initialize a volume only once in its lifetime. BRMS keeps track of whether the volume has active data on it, and prevents you from overwriting the active data. In addition, it allows you to overwrite expired data. This single initialize concept means that volume error statistics can be kept for the life of the volume. BRMS associates these statistics with the volume ID. If you were to re-initialize a volume and give it a different volume serial, the statistics would be lost. Keeping lifetime statistics for volumes is effective media management. When the error rate for a particular volume is too high, remove the volume from service.

You can use either the ADDMEDBRM or the INZMEDBRM (Initialize Media using BRM) command to initialize your media. Using the ADDMEDBRM command allows you to initialize the media and also to add the initialized media to the BRMS media inventory at the same time. The ADDMEDBRM command also allows you to specify additional BRMS media management information such as location and media statistics, whereas the INZMEDBRM command only initializes media.

To initialize a volume from the ADDMEDBRM display, simply change the Initialize media field from *NO to *YES and press Enter. Then type a valid device name into the Device field and press Enter (you can access the Device field by pressing F10, Additional Parameters).

If you do not initialize volumes through the ADDMEDBRM display, use the BRMS INZMEDBRM command instead of the i5/OS INZTAP or INZOPT command. To use the INZMEDBRM command to initialize your media, take the following steps:

1. Ensure that your device is varied on.
2. Type INZMEDBRM at a command line and press Enter.
3. The key fields on this command are:
   • In the Device field, specify the name of the device that you want to use to initialize the volume, for example, TAP01.
   • In the New volume ID field, type in the name of the volume you want to initialize, for example, VOL02.
   • In the Media class field, indicate the media class you need to use for this volume, for example CART3490E.
   • To assure the protection of media on a System i product that is using BRMS media, BRMS disables the CHECK(*NO) value on the INZTAP and INZOPT command. This affects users without *SAVSYS, *SERVICE, or *ALLOBJ authority. Users do not need any specific authority to use this parameter on the BRMS INZMEDBRM command.
4. Review and change the remaining parameters as needed.
5. Press Enter to apply your changes.