From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Dec 18 22:36:07 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id WAA02354 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Fri, 18 Dec 1998 22:36:07 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from n4hhe.ampr.org (tnt1-152.HiWAAY.net [208.147.147.152]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA02327 for ; Fri, 18 Dec 1998 22:36:00 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dkelly@n4hhe.ampr.org) Received: from n4hhe.ampr.org (localhost.ampr.org [127.0.0.1]) by n4hhe.ampr.org (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id AAA10607; Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:35:52 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from dkelly@n4hhe.ampr.org) Message-Id: <199812190635.AAA10607@n4hhe.ampr.org> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: Gary Kline cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG From: David Kelly Subject: Re: 4mm tape drive question In-reply-to: Message from Gary Kline of "Fri, 18 Dec 1998 21:49:22 PST." <199812190549.VAA17445@athena.tera.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 00:35:52 -0600 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Gary Kline writes: > > > When I bought my 4mm tape drive in '95, 2GB was a _lot_ > of storage; but since I've just added a 9G drive to > my main system, it's time to consider the backups. > > My question: can I use a cassette larger than 90meter > ones I've been using? (And why?) Don't know what brand and model 4mm drive you have so we can't answer. But if you have a DDS-1 drive you are limited to the 60m and 90m tapes. All but the earliest DDS drives are smart enough to know what tape you put it, or at least smart enough to know if they were designed to use the tape you inserted. 120m DDS-2 tapes "only" do a native 4G. But only on DDS-2 drives. 125m DDS-3 tapes do a native 12G. I wonder if these tapes are really 5m longer than DDS-2 or somebody in marketing just fudged the numbers? A good solution for now would be to use the -z option in FreeBSD's GNU tar. You'll get some useful compression if you use tar. Otherwise partition the drive in chunks small enough to fit on your tapes in order to enforce a segregation for backup. -- 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. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message