Optical

Optical devices can be exported by the Virtual I/O Server. This topic gives information about what types of optical devices are supported.

The Virtual I/O Server supports exporting physical optical devices to client logical partitions. These are referred to as virtual SCSI optical devices. Virtual SCSI optical devices can be backed by DVD drives or files. Depending on the backing device, the Virtual I/O Server will export a virtual optical device with one of following profiles:

For example, file-backed virtual SCSI optical devices are exported as DVD-RAM devices. File-backed virtual SCSI optical devices can be backed by read-write or read-only files. Depending on the file permissions, the device can appear to contain a DVD-ROM or DVD-RAM disk. Read-write media files (DVD-RAM) cannot be loaded into more than one file-backed virtual SCSI optical device simultaneously. Read-only media files (DVD-ROM) can be loaded into multiple file-backed virtual SCSI optical devices simultaneously.

Virtual SCSI optical devices that are backed by physical optical devices can be assigned to only one client logical partition at any given time. To use the device on a different client logical partition, it must first be removed from its current logical partition and reassigned to the logical partition that will use the device.

Virtual SCSI optical devices will always appear as SCSI devices on the client logical partitions regardless of whether the device type exported from the Virtual I/O Server is a SCSI, IDE, USB device, or a file.