Media library apparatus and method of controlling the media library apparatus

A media library apparatus comprising:

• a transportation mechanism that transports a transportable medium;
• a storage section that stores a plurality of transportable media;
• a plurality of drive devices each of which reads or writes desired data on a selected one of the media;
• and
• a controller which causes a group of the media that are to be simultaneously subjected to a data striping process to be inserted in said plurality of drive devices, said controller controlling operation of said plurality of drive devices, in a parallel fashion, so as to perform the data striping process on the media inserted in said drive devices,
• wherein a predetermined substitute sector is formatted in each of said media, and when a defective sector is found in a user data area of the medium, the substitute sector is used in place of the defective sector,
• wherein for each of the media that are to be simultaneously subjected to the data striping process, a data-storing management region is set separately from the substitute sector, and
• wherein said controller performs control such that when there arises a situation where desired data can not be written onto any one of the media in data write processing based on the data striping process, the data write processing can be carried on using the management region.

A method of controlling a media library apparatus comprising:

• a transportation mechanism for transporting a transportable medium;
• a storage section for storing a plurality of transportable media;
• a plurality of drive devices each provided for reading or writing desired data on a selected one of the media;
• and a controller for causing a group of the media that are to be simultaneously subjected to a data striping process to be inserted in said plurality of drive devices and controlling operation of said plurality of drive devices, in a parallel fashion, so as to perform the data striping process on the media inserted in said drive devices, said method comprising:
• a first step of setting a data-storing management region for each of the media that are to be simultaneously subjected to the data striping process;
• and
• a second step of performing control such that when there arises a situation where desired data can not be written onto any one of the media in data write processing based on the data striping process, the data to be written onto the one medium is written into the management regions of all the media that are to be simultaneously subjected to the data striping process, to thereby allow the data write processing to be carried on without suspension.