Hiberden includes a built-in virtual tape drive so you can run the entire tape workflow with no hardware attached. It exists for one reason: to let you evaluate tape archiving before you spend money on an LTO drive.
Turning it on
Go to Settings > Tape and switch on "Use a virtual tape drive", then restart Hiberden. The drive is chosen once when the app starts, so the switch takes effect on the next launch and not immediately.
Hiberden then runs a drive backed by an ordinary folder on your disk, so you can write an archive to a cartridge, read it back, verify it and restore it with no hardware attached. On Windows the mounted cartridge appears as a real drive letter; elsewhere it is a folder. Nothing is ever written to tape.
The virtual drive is self-contained. You do not need IBM's LTFS software or any other vendor tooling to use it; that only becomes necessary when you connect a real drive.
What you can exercise
With the virtual drive on, Hiberden treats it like a connected tape drive and the full workflow works:
- Write. Add a Tape (LTO) destination, bind it in a policy, and archive to it. The verify-after-write gate reads the copy back and re-hashes it against the recorded SHA-256, the same gate every destination goes through. Without a drive (virtual or real), Save & test on a Tape destination reports: "No tape drive detected. Turn on the virtual tape drive (or connect an LTO drive)."
- Span. When an archive is too big for one cartridge, the app continues onto the next one, and a restore reads the parts back in order. The virtual cartridge is a full-size LTO-9, so an ordinary evaluation archive fits on one and you will not be asked to swap cartridges.
- Verify. Re-verify a tape copy on demand; Hiberden re-reads it and re-hashes it.
- Restore. Whole-archive restore from a tape copy works, including spanned sets.
The mounted cartridge appears as a real drive letter in Explorer, so you can open it and see what Hiberden actually writes: a standard TAR plus its JSON sidecar, ordinary files on an ordinary volume.
This is not a stripped-down demo path. It exercises the app's real tape workflow, the same code that drives an LTFS-mounted cartridge, and it is the environment Hiberden's own tape code is tested against end to end.
A complete zero-hardware evaluation
Combined with the 30-day trial, the virtual drive means you can evaluate everything Hiberden does, including the tape side, without buying anything: no drive, no cartridges, no vendor software. If the workflow fits, then decide on hardware. When you are ready for a real drive, see Tape (LTO-9 / LTFS) for what a physical setup needs.
What the virtual drive is not
A virtual tape copy is a folder on your local disk wearing a drive letter. It is fine for learning the workflow and testing restores, but it is not protected storage: it gives you no second media type, no air gap, and no offsite copy. Do not count a virtual-tape copy toward your real 3-2-1 protection. When you move to production, replace it with a real tape drive or another genuine destination.