Patent ID: 7697228

Claim:
An apparatus for interchange testing, the apparatus comprising: a plurality of tape drives configured to read data from and write data to a plurality of tapes; a plurality of reserved slots, one reserved slot corresponding to each tape drive, each reserved slot configured to store one tape for the corresponding tape drive, wherein no other tape drive accesses the stored tape from the reserved slot; and a test module comprising a computer readable program stored on a tangible storage device, executed by a processor and configured to test a first tape, the test comprising moving the first tape from a tape pool to a first reserved slot; loading the first tape to a first tape drive from the first reserved slot; reading to end of at least two file marks on the first tape; rewinding to a beginning of the first tape; spacing forward on the first tape to a beginning of a second of the at least two file marks; writing specified data to the first tape; writing a new second file mark to the first tape; and moving the first tape to the first reserved slot.