Windows 2000 Removable Storage Manager Performs Tasks Sequentially

The Removable Storage Manager service (RSM) in Windows 2000 manages media for devices such as tape drives, tape changers, CD-ROM changers, and jukeboxes. RSM assigns names to these media so that you do not have to know in which physical slot the media is located.

When you use RSM, you may notice that only one operation is carried out at a time, sequentially. For example, your tape changer may have multiple tape drives available, but when you instruct RSM to prepare two or more tapes, identify media, or perform an inventory, RSM uses only one drive at at time.

When you instruct RSM to perform multiple operations, they are queued. Operations are performed in a sequential manner until all jobs are completed.

This behavior is by design.

You can view the jobs in the queue by clicking Start, pointing to Programs, pointing to Administrator Tools, clicking Computer Management, double-clicking Storage, double-clicking Removable Storage, and then clicking Work Queue. Note that this does not mean that two operations (such as a backup process and a file retrieval process) cannot be performed on a tape changer with multiple drives. This means only that multiple commands are carried out sequentially.