LTO Label Reference Guide

Human Readable Section

The human readable section of the LTO label enables IT staff to identify tapes visually. Because tape libraries only read the machine-readable section, the human readable section is where most of the label customization occurs. The human readable section is typically six characters (not counting the media ID) but may be customized as being between one and twenty-five characters long. All the characters in the human readable section (including the media ID) are encoded into the machine-readable section.

Prefix
This portion of the human readable section remains unchanged for a given batch of LTO labels. Only upper-case alphabetic characters (A-Z) should be used. The prefix can be anything that helps you identify a group of tapes, like the name of your company or the name of a department within your company. For example, the prefix “MKT” could be used for tapes that will be used to backup data from the marketing department, or the prefix “TUE” could be used for tapes that will be used for company-wide backups s performed on Tuesdays. The prefix is typically zero to three characters long. It is perfectly acceptable not to use a prefix, as it is an optional parameter. The length of the prefix should not change the total length of the human readable section. For example, if the human readable section has the typical length of six characters (not counting the media ID) and the prefix is two characters long, then the variable segment should be four characters long.

Variable segment
This portion of the human readable section has incremental numerical values (0‐9). Labels are typically incremented by one, but other increments may be specified. The length of the variable segment determines how many labels can be printed for a given batch of LTO labels. For example, if the variable segment is two characters long, no more than 100 labels may be printed per batch if duplicate labels are to be avoided.

Suffix
The suffix has the same characteristics as the prefix, except that the suffix is placed between the variable segment and the media ID. The use of a suffix is not typical. Starting sequence The starting sequence is simply the concatenation of the prefix and the variable segment of the first label of a LTO label batch. The starting sequence, the increment amount in the variable segment and the desired number of labels unambiguously determine the characters of each single label to be printed.

Media ID
The media ID allows tapes libraries to identify the type of cartridge. Table 1 shows the media ID parameters that are typically used. Machine Readable Section The machine-readable section of an LTO label allows tape libraries to identify and handle the cartridge. It is the only part of the LTO label that tape libraries read. The machine-readable section consists of a barcode that has the same exact data as the human readable section (including the media ID). Said data is encoded using Code 39 standard.

Barcode Orientation
The bottom barcode orientation is typically used and default orientation in many libraries, however it is possible to choose alternative barcodes orientations like top, right or left. These optional orientations are shown in the images below.