From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jan 28 21:49:42 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 259F710656F6 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:49:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: from email1.allantgroup.com (email1.emsphone.com [199.67.51.115]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC0778FC19 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:49:41 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: from dan.emsphone.com (dan-a.emsphone.com [199.67.51.107]) by email1.allantgroup.com (8.14.0/8.14.0) with ESMTP id n0SLnefH009892 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:49:41 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: from dan.emsphone.com (smmsp@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dan.emsphone.com (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id n0SLnejo004218 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:49:40 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: (from dan@localhost) by dan.emsphone.com (8.14.3/8.14.3/Submit) id n0SLndKh004215; Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:49:39 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from dan) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:49:39 -0600 From: Dan Nelson To: Jaime Message-ID: <20090128214938.GE63837@dan.emsphone.com> References: <20090128202349.GD63837@dan.emsphone.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-OS: FreeBSD 7.1-STABLE User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.94.1, clamav-milter version 0.94.1 on email1.allantgroup.com X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (email1.allantgroup.com [199.67.51.78]); Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:49:41 -0600 (CST) X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.45 Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Quantum tape drive X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:49:46 -0000 In the last episode (Jan 28), Jaime said: > On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Dan Nelson wrote: > > > > In the last episode (Jan 28), Jaime said: > >> /usr/bin/tar -cvpX /usr/local/etc/backups/skiplist-relative.txt -f /dev/sa0 -C / . > > > > If nothing else, I suggest bumping up your blocksize. The default for > > tar (10k) is pretty small for modern tape drives. Try -b 128 (for a 64k > > block size). Another optimization would be to put a buffering program > > in between tar and your tape drive to decouple disk reads from tape > > writes. misc/team, misc/buffer, and misc/cstream in ports are good for > > this. > > Thanks. Would this decrease the ability of other Unixes being able to > read the tape? For example, using pax (which can read tar archives) > or GNU's tar? It shouldn't. At worst you may have to specify a matching blocksize argument when reading. > Sadly, I forgot to mention something in my last message. Sorry. > > When reading from the tape using tar (bsdtar from FreeBSD 6.2 -- and, > yes, I'm preparing a cvsup as I write this :) ) the tape drive's Alarm > and Fault LEDs are lit up and then camcontrol devlist no longer shows > the tape drive. According to http://downloads.quantum.com/dlt_v4/DLT-V4_Product_Manual_81-81422-03_A01.pdf#page=67 , there is no alarm LED on a DLT-V4 drive, just Ready, Fault, Clean, and Media. If the Fault light is lit solid, it says that's an "Internal firmware error". If Fault and Clean are blinking slowly, you may have a bad tape or may need to put a cleaning tape in. > After I wrote to the tape via a quick boot into Knoppix, I found that > FreeBSD's tar command could list the files on the tape. So maybe that is > in the past now. Maybe not. I should have mentioned it earlier. Sorry. > > Any other thoughts before I try to OS update and the larger block size? -- Dan Nelson dnelson@allantgroup.com