Patent ID: 8780474

Claim:
A system, operable by a processor device, for setting information to be referred to when data is written to a tape medium, the apparatus comprising: a size acquisition unit in communication with the processor device, the size acquisition unit adapted for acquiring a size of an area on the tape medium affected by a defect occurring on the tape medium; a ratio acquisition unit in communication with the size acquisition unit, the ratio acquisition unit adapted for acquiring a ratio of a part of the data to be written to the tape medium with respect to an entirety of the data to be written, the part of the data to be written being recoverable by an error correction code; and a determination unit in communication with the ratio acquisition unit, the determination unit adapted for, by using the size acquired by the size acquisition unit and the ratio acquired by the ratio acquisition unit, determining a minimum number of data blocks to form write data such that an entirety of the write data may be recovered in an event that a part of the write data fails to be read due to the defect, the write data being written to the tape medium in response to a synchronization instruction to write reception data received from a higher-level apparatus to the tape medium.