Fee-based provisioning of supplemental drives in automated data storage libraries

A storage system, comprising:

• a magnetic tape library, having:
• one or more primary magnetic tape drives,
• a supplemental magnetic tape drive, the supplemental magnetic tape drive having a lower level of performance than the primary magnetic tape drives, and
• one or more robotic accessors physically configured to access each of the one or more primary magnetic tape drives and the supplemental magnetic tape drive;
• a processor;
• and
• logic integrated with the processor, executable by the processor, or integrated with and executable by the processor, the logic being configured to:
• cause, by the processor, performance of data operations using the primary magnetic tape drives,
• wherein the supplemental magnetic tape drive is locked from use outside of situations which meet a predefined circumstance, wherein the predefined circumstance is defined based at least in part on a criterion selected from the group consisting of:
• a number of data operations waiting in a queue, experienced delay times, whether user permission has been received, and a remaining amount of a budget allocated for supplemental magnetic tape drive usage fees;
• cause, by the processor, unlocking of the supplemental magnetic tape drive in response to determining that the predefined circumstance is met;
• cause, by the processor, the unlocked supplemental magnetic tape drive to perform data operations in parallel with the primary magnetic tape drives for increasing a level of performance of the magnetic tape library;
• cause, by the processor, the supplemental magnetic tape drive to become locked in response to determining that the predefined circumstance is no longer met;
• track, by the processor, an amount that the supplemental magnetic tape drive is used to perform the data operations during a period of time;
• and
• output, by the processor, usage data which corresponds to the amount that the supplemental magnetic tape drive is used during the period of time for calculation of a usage fee which corresponds to the usage data.