Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 23:55:15 +0200 From: Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: SCSI tape drive recommendations? Message-ID: <m3zo0j3z98.fsf@merlin.emma.line.org> In-Reply-To: <3CAA3639.2030401@mac.com> (paul beard's message of "Tue, 02 Apr 2002 14:52:41 -0800") References: <3CAA3639.2030401@mac.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
paul beard <paulbeard@mac.com> writes: > I have a 4.5-RELEASE system and have just taken possession of an > AHA-2940 ultra scsi card: I think it's time I took a serious look at > backing stuff up. Someone gave me a tape drive that turned out to be an > floppy tape unit, unsupported under FreeBSD. So I'm looking to do it > right this time. Any either recommended units or brands and formats? > > I don't have but a few Gb of stuff to back up, 10 at the outside for > now. The most any machine will take up is 2-3 Gb. Boxes I'd like to have > backed up range from Mac OS 9/X to FreeBSD and NetBSD. Beware: all of this is based on Linux experience, not FreeBSD. I have good experience with Tandberg SLR tape drives (Tandberg) which -- with Linux -- work out of the box with the stock st driver, and which are robust, with media seamlessly interchangable between compatible drives, with no tracking issues that seem to haunt some DDS drives (I had some difficulties interchanging DDS-1 tapes between two HP drives or one HP and one Archive drive). SLR is a linear (serpentine) recording technology which uses QIC cartridges and is available from some hundred MB to some ten GB per tape. I've been using an SLR 4 DC (2,5 GB) drive for some time now. Used DLT IV (20 GB) may be fine, I have no first-hand experience though. Travan 20NS (10 GB) may work for you, but beware, some cheaper Travan drives, notably, Seagate, do not do "verify-while-write" or "read-after-write" in the same tape pass as writing: don't buy drives without write verify (think: 3-head style tape monitor in Stereo/Hi Fi terms) or you will have to do an additional verify run after writing. When it comes to Onstream, watch out: some drives attach to the SCSI bus, but have a different (non-standard) command set, for which Onstream provide a LINUX driver "osst". Check their site to figure which drives requires the osst driver, I presume these won't work with FreeBSD. Onstream offer other drives that use the standard Linux st driver, I hope these are fine with FreeBSD. Not sure at all about their ATA(PI) drives. -- Matthias Andree To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?m3zo0j3z98.fsf>