From owner-freebsd-stable Fri Sep 11 08:41:21 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA15784 for freebsd-stable-outgoing; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 08:41:21 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from snoopy.ne.mediaone.net (snoopy.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.48.108]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA15777 for ; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 08:41:18 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from drt@snoopy.ne.mediaone.net) Received: (from drt@localhost) by snoopy.ne.mediaone.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA08869; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 11:41:06 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from drt) To: stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SCSI tape drives From: drt@snoopy.ne.mediaone.net (David R. Tucker) Date: 11 Sep 1998 11:41:06 -0400 In-Reply-To: dag-erli@ifi.uio.no's message of "11 Sep 1998 03:03:31 +0200" Message-ID: <86btomac8d.fsf@snoopy.ne.mediaone.net> Lines: 52 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.3 - "Vatican City" Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG dag-erli@ifi.uio.no (Dag-Erling Coïdan Smørgrav ) writes: > Andy Farkas writes: > > User GregGreg Shenaut wrote: > > > : Does anyone here have any experience with SCSI Travan drives under > > > : FreeBSD? If so, how are they working out? > > > > Whether or not it was my fault, I left a AU$50 tape in one of these > > drives for a couple of days, and when I went to do a backup, I was > > informed by the software (amanda) that the tape was unusable. When I > > pulled the tape out of the drive and looked at the surface of the tape, > > it had creases on it from where the tape-head was resting on the tape! > > Hmm... > > My Travan streamer gets *very* hot (though not hot enough to scold), > and even when idle, it's noticeably hotter than some of my hard disks, > so I never leave tapes in it. I haven't had either of these problems. My ordinary practice is to run a Level 0 dump every night, but I have gone away for over 3 weeks leaving a single tape in the drive with no problems. This is on my home machine and I only have 1 GB of data, so I have yet to run into the end-of-file problem mentioned in another message (although now that I know about it I'd love to know that B figure, as well). And of course, the tapes are notoriously expensive, running US$30 retail or so. I have found that retensioning each time as part of the backup script is a good idea, because otherwise I can get errors beginning with the second filesystem backed up. I have restored from scratch with no problems. The upshot: I like mine, but I've never seen them praised on any FreeBSD mailing list or newsgroup. So, they would seem best for smaller applications where backups can be arranged so as to fit on a single tape, where money is tight, and where the need to buy a lot of expensive tapes won't eat up all your savings. Otherwise, despite my experience, they're probably not worth the risk, especially in an environment where administrators are paid to be risk-averse with data. -- David R. Tucker drt@pobox.com "I may be wrong, but I'm not Clearly Erroneous." -Judge Hillman To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message