Tape Drive Problems
Jerad Stoops
travan scsi tape drive, the other system has an HP Colorado 4GB/8GB travan
ide tape drive. All of the backups that I make on the Aiwa can't be read on
the HP. I've tried tar, pax, cpio from the command line and the sco shell
utilities and even the gui backup manager but none can be read. The backup
either doesn't read at all or it gives an End of medium message asking for
the next tape. The command that SCO recommends is:
find /u -print | cpio -ocvB -O/dev/rct0 ... but even it didn't work.
Supposedly the problem is related to the end of file mark placed on the tape
by the tape drive.
If anybody has any info. I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks
Syd
j...@sofnet.com
Bill Campbell
>I have two SCO Openserver 5.0.5 systems. One has an Aiwa TD-8001NS 4GB/8GB
>travan scsi tape drive, the other system has an HP Colorado 4GB/8GB travan
>ide tape drive. All of the backups that I make on the Aiwa can't be read on
>the HP. I've tried tar, pax, cpio from the command line and the sco shell
>utilities and even the gui backup manager but none can be read. The backup
>either doesn't read at all or it gives an End of medium message asking for
>the next tape. The command that SCO recommends is:
>find /u -print | cpio -ocvB -O/dev/rct0 ... but even it didn't work.
>Supposedly the problem is related to the end of file mark placed on the tape
>by the tape drive.
My experience with the AIWA tape drives is that they look cheap, and
perform as they look. For what it's worth, I prefer Tandberg drives.
The Travan tapes are supposed to be compatible, and I haven't had any
problems moving tapes between Tandberg, Seagate, and HP NS8 drives.
Bill
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principals or your mistress".
Tony Lawrence
>
> I have two SCO Openserver 5.0.5 systems. One has an Aiwa TD-8001NS 4GB/8GB
> travan scsi tape drive, the other system has an HP Colorado 4GB/8GB travan
> ide tape drive. All of the backups that I make on the Aiwa can't be read on
> the HP. I've tried tar, pax, cpio from the command line and the sco shell
> utilities and even the gui backup manager but none can be read.
It's possible that these guys use different hardware
compression schemes. The HP's, I think, default to hardware
compression turned on, but can be turned off with a dip
switch. At least that's the case for DAT's; I have no idea
about the Travan's- for all I know, that's a universal
standard. I also have no idea about the Aiwa- that's pretty
cheap stuff and not something I'd put in anything of value.
If you were using one of the Supertars
(http://www.aplawrence.com/Reviews/supertars.shtml ) you
could write to your vendor and would no doubt get excellent,
expert, and useful advice far beyond the capabilities of
most of us here. Those guys know tapes :-)
--
Tony Lawrence (to...@aplawrence.com)
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job listings and more : http://www.ApLawrence.com
Mariusz Bryniewicz
deserted. For sure there is dip switch to select hardware compression or
not. I always suggest to not use hardware compression at all.
Mariusz
Tony Lawrence <to...@aplawrence.com> wrote in message
news:386C98E3...@aplawrence.com...
Bill Vermillion
<m...@circletrust.com> wrote:
>Fortunately I have TD-8001NS 4GB/8GB SCSI on my NT machine.
>The place it deserted. For sure there is dip switch to select
>hardware compression or not. I always suggest to not use hardware
>compression at all.
OTOH on all the SCO systems I have the HW compression on as it
takes full advantage of the drives capabilites and you can see
typically see a data transfer rate twice that of native
non-compressed mode. One client on a DDS-2 typically gets
about 130MB/min, DDS-3's get well over 180MB.
The faster the backup the less wear/tear on heads and tapes as the
tape travels at the same speed all the time.
If the average data compression is 50% that means your tape and
drive could last twice as long between replacements.
--
Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com
D. Thomas Podnar
: I have two SCO Openserver 5.0.5 systems. One has an Aiwa TD-8001NS 4GB/8GB
: travan scsi tape drive, the other system has an HP Colorado 4GB/8GB travan
: ide tape drive. All of the backups that I make on the Aiwa can't be read on
: the HP. I've tried tar, pax, cpio from the command line and the sco shell
: utilities and even the gui backup manager but none can be read. The backup
: either doesn't read at all or it gives an End of medium message asking for
: the next tape. The command that SCO recommends is:
: find /u -print | cpio -ocvB -O/dev/rct0 ... but even it didn't work.
: Supposedly the problem is related to the end of file mark placed on the tape
: by the tape drive.
:
: If anybody has any info. I would greatly appreciate it.
OK, this is from memory but:
The Aiwa drive is Imation NS certified, meaning that it has read-after-write
heads and uses a standardized hardware compression.
The HP has NO hardware compression and the 8GB part means "if you are
using a backup program that averages 50% compression".
To make them speak, you have to "dumb down" the Aiwa by turning off
hardware compression.
Under OpenServer 5.0.x
tape -a 0 setcomp /dev/xStp0
or with BackupEDGE
edge.tape -arg 0 -C /dev/xStp0
To verify this, one would issue:
tape getcomp /dev/xStp0
or
edge.tape -a /dev/xStp0
One additional possibility that may cause problems:
The tape drives may power up in different hardware block modes:
tape getblk /dev/xStp0
or
edge.tape -g /dev/xStp0
For instance, one may be set at 512 and one may be set at 0 (variable).
To make them identical at 0, one would issue:
tape -a 0 setblk /dev/xStp0
or
edge.tape -arg 0 -B /dev/xStp0
For identical at 512 byte blocks, it would be:
tape -a 512 setblk /dev/xStp0
or
edge.tape -arg 512 -B /dev/xStp0
Best regards, and Happy New Year to all!
Tom
---
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Come on Tom. Faximum pulled a similar stunt 2 years ago on the SCO
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release date to prove my point.
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