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To: Keith Mitchell <kmitch@weenix.guru.org>
cc: gibbs@plutotech.com (Justin T. Gibbs), scsi@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Archive Viper and 3940UW (bad Drive?) 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 05 Jul 1997 17:37:04 EDT."
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Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 15:52:49 -0600
From: "Justin T. Gibbs" <gibbs@plutotech.com>
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>> You shouldn't have to erase the tapes before using them.
>
>I agree, but these were not new tapes.  These were tapes I have been using
>for many months repeatedly (in a cycle -- 15 types, so each tape got
>used about twice a month).

You shouldn't have to erase used tapes before using them either.

>> Did up-ing the timeout in st_write_filemarks fix the problem?  Perhaps
>> 60s is better than 10s there too?
>
>It helped, but so did uping the times of the .5 second timeouts
>(mode_sense, mode_select, etc) which may indicate that the
>problem could be in st_open (the mount).

If the tape drive needs to look at the media before it can respond, then
the .5s timeouts are way too short.

>I am not exactly sure what the cause was.  Whether everytime amanda
>rewrote the header, the filemark got longer or what happened.  Erasing
>the tapes did seem to fix it though.  Right now, I am running without
>any mods to the timeout values and all seems to be working correctly
>(since I erased the tapes).

Which will last for how many months before your dumps panic the system
again?? 8-)

>-- 
>Keith Mitchell					Head Administrator: acm.vt.edu
>Email: kmitch@weenix.guru.org			PGP key available upon request
>http://weenix.guru.org/~kmitch 
>     Address and URL (c) 1997 Keith Mitchell - All Rights Reserved
>   		Unauthorized use or duplication prohibited
>

--
Justin T. Gibbs
===========================================
  FreeBSD: Turning PCs into workstations
===========================================