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Date:      Wed, 28 Apr 1999 09:12:30 -0700 (PWT)
From:      Matthew Jacob <mjacob@feral.com>
To:        amobbs@allstor-sw.co.uk
Cc:        freebsd-scsi@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: QIC tape problems on -stable (was: hanging `tar xfvR /dev /nrst0' process, can i debug it?)
Message-ID:  <Pine.LNX.4.04.9904280909290.24720-100000@feral.com>
In-Reply-To: <80256761.00572CBF.00@mail.plasmon.co.uk>

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> 
> 
> >
> >These are *amazingly* broken drives then. The SCSI specification says that
> >a write of *zero* filemarks is to flush any pending writes. You have to do
> >this when you do a read hardware position in order to avoid an ambiguity
> >in the spec as to the true position as affected by data in the tape drive
> >buffer.
> 
> Doesn't Read Position (34h) give all the info you need, i.e. Physical pos.,
> logical pos. and number of blocks in buffer?  I agree that flushing is
> safer, but surely one could avoid it if necessary.
> 

Now *that's* an area I would mistrust the f/w on- yes, you get number of
blocks in the buffer (you use a flag in the cdb to select SCSI logical vs.
hardware, and there's *nothing* that says that any device has to support
either. STK drives puke on SCSI logical block reporting. DLT's puke on
hardware block reporting).

I think the patch I sent is probably the right approach. It's always a
tradeoff- features vs. supporting really broken h/w. It really ticks me
that this is broken.

-matt




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