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Date:      Thu, 25 Feb 1999 19:32:11 -0600
From:      David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net>
To:        mi@aldan.algebra.com
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG, tapesupport@seagate.com
Subject:   Re: disabling compression on Seagate DAT (Arhive Python) drive 
Message-ID:  <199902260132.TAA52025@nospam.hiwaay.net>
In-Reply-To: Message from Mikhail Teterin <mi@misha.cisco.com>  of "Thu, 25 Feb 1999 15:48:07 EST." <199902252048.PAA22091@misha.cisco.com> 

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Mikhail Teterin writes:
> The manual says it is possible to do by a MODE SELECT command
> from the host computer, but provides no specifics. Can someone,
> please, share the knowledge? Ideally, I need an argument for
> FreeBSD-2.2.6's scsi(8) command.

First, I'd suggest an upgrade to 3.1-stable is in order. The mt(1) 
utility now supports enabling/disabling compression. A minor nit is 
the new CAM sa driver implements "mount sessions" and resets to 
defaults when it thinks the mount session ends. No way to chose your 
defaults.

If that is out of the question, then there is a "DC-Passthru" jumper 
and/or DIP switch on the Seagate drive which selects the compression 
state at power up. Under older FreeBSD's this means you don't have a 
means to enable compression. But reading a compressed tape will 
automagically work. What I'm concerned about is that once you have read 
a compressed tape the drive will stay in compressed mode when you 
create a new tape. Its not supposed to be possible to switch 
compression modes in the middle of a tape.

While we are CC:'ing Seagate on this (I'm a good Seagate customer with 
about 100 Seagate HD's and 15 Seagate tape drives at work) I'd like to 
know how one can query a drive to learn 1) what compression mode is on 
the tape, and 2) the error rate on the tape that was just read or 
written.

The only way I've found to prove a tape is compressed or not is to 
attempt to read with a DDS drive which doesn't support compression. 
Doesn't do me any good if its a DDS-2 or DDS-3 tape as my DDS-1 drives 
are the only ones that don't support compression.

--
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@nospam.hiwaay.net
=====================================================================
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its
capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.




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