International Business Machines Corporation
Fee-based provisioning of supplemental drives in automated data storage libraries

Abstract:

A computer-implemented method, according to one embodiment, includes: receiving tracking information which corresponds to an amount that at least one supplemental data storage drive of an automated data storage library was used during a period of time. The automated data storage library in turn includes: one or more primary data storage drives, and one or more robotic accessors physically configured to access each of the one or more primary data storage drives and the at least one supplemental storage drive. Accordingly, the tracking information is used to calculate a usage fee which corresponds to the amount that the at least one supplemental data storage drive was used during the period of time. Furthermore, the usage fee is sent to a user associated with the automated data storage library.