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)." On Windows without IBM's LTFS installed, it reports "Tape drive check failed" instead, naming the LTFS tool it could not find.
- 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. The verify-after-write gate above is how a tape copy is proven. This build has no working on-demand verify for a tape copy, so its card has no verify button; leave tape out of a report's re-verify (see Running a verification).
- Restore. Restore from a tape copy works, the whole archive or only the files you tick, 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: the archive's part file (<name>__<key>.part000, which on one cartridge is the whole TAR), the JSON sidecar beside it, and a chain manifest, 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.