Questions tagged [lto]

Linear Tape Open is a family of tape specifications ranging from 100 GB (LTO-1) to 12 TB (LTO-8).

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1 answer
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Possible to use two tape drives alternately with tar?

I have a two drive, 24 slot LTO library. I am testing the use of a script on the tar command "--new-volume-script=COMMAND" that when called, contains the changer "mtx -f /dev/sg2 next&...
-1 votes
1 answer
46 views

Testing IBM LTO 7 hh drive out of its library tray

I am trying to diagnose a library drive for wich I don´t have a library. It belongs to a ibm 4300 library. I connected an atx psu to the mini molex 4 pin connector on the drive, and as soon as I turn ...
2 votes
0 answers
55 views

trouble with Oracle Sun SAS 6GB/s pci-e drivers

I got a new card for my server, a Sun SAS card (SG-XPCIESAS-GEN2-Z), and now I cannot get it to work. I tried many LSI drivers, many Adaptec drivers, but none work, some even crash. Card P/N is ...
7 votes
3 answers
2k views

LTO 5 tape rotation best practices - Lifetime

What is the general best practice for keeping LTO 5 tapes in a rotation? I have read that they have archival capability of 30 years, but I am sure this really depends on how much you're reading and ...
0 votes
3 answers
10k views

data protector red tapes

I am using HP Data Protector A.06.11 in my organization, with HP EML E-SeriesEML library, with 4 drives using LTO-4 tapes, and i am having some problems. Yesterday I put 5 new tapes in the robot and ...
19 votes
4 answers
14k views

Determining LTO Cleaning Tape Expiration?

I have some LTO tape drives, and use cleaning tapes as required, but the lifetime of the cleaning tapes is not as predictable as I would have expected. I'm looking for a way to query the system, ...
0 votes
1 answer
219 views

What are the IOPS and physical block size for modern magnetic tapes?

It's obvious that magnetic tape media performs IO operations as well as HDDs and SSDs, although this storage device is not designed for a random access pattern. LTO standards define maximal data ...
1 vote
1 answer
3k views

tar throwing input/output error when reading from tape, but file is ok

I've written about 1.5TB of files onto a tape with tar -b 512 -clpMvf /dev/nst0 /path_to_stuff Everything worked well, no error messages. Now if I try to read it back from tape with tar -b 512 -...
0 votes
1 answer
178 views

LTO6 drive asking firmware update but does not accept it

I recently pulled an ibm LTO 6 fh fibre drive from a library and was using it in standalone mode in a windows 10 pc where I use other sas drives. It was working just fine. Yesterday I turn it on to ...
0 votes
2 answers
2k views

Backup strategy for millions of files in lots of directories

We have millions of files in lots of directories, for example: \00\00\00\00.txt \00\00\00\01.pdf \00\00\00\02.html ... so on \05\55\12\31.txt backing up these to tape is slow as backing up data in ...
11 votes
8 answers
20k views

Difference between LTO half-height and full-height drives?

I've noticed that most tape drive vendors provide two options: full-height or half-height. The half-height drives are physically smaller and less expensive, yet seem to have identical specifications ...
0 votes
0 answers
70 views

Read LTO memory chip with a drive older than the tape

That is the question. Can I read the data inside the memory chip of a lto7 tape using an lto6 drive? I have only tried ITDT on windows but it rejects to do anything with the tape. Just asking in case ...
2 votes
3 answers
4k views

Tape drive Connectivity - Fiber channel Vs SAS

We want to change our tape backup system and acquire a LTO8 tape drive. Something that I cannot find the answer easily is what are the pro&con of the connectivty by Fiber channel or SAS. For the ...
4 votes
3 answers
1k views

Turning an IBM lto6 sas HH drive from library to standalone, how?

new here. I have been using a stand alone lto6 hh drive (ibm ts2260/3580 h6s) for two years. Just recently I bumped into an almost new ibm ts2900 autoloader with an hh lto6 drive in it and bought it. ...
16 votes
5 answers
4k views

Determine remaining capacity of LTO tape

How can I determine how much space is remaining on an LTO tape? If I seek to the end and check the status, I can see I am on file number 17, but what I do not know is how large each file was. $ mt -...
4 votes
0 answers
87 views

Read LTO Tape ID Tag

LTO 6 Tapes contain a ID tag within the casing (I assume its RFID). Is it possible to read the tag via mt commands? I would like to identify the tape that is currently loaded in the tape drive. I'm ...
5 votes
4 answers
2k views

What could cause an LTO drive to write at half its capacity?

I have an LTO4 drive that when given even new LTO4 tapes, only writes around 460GiB to the tape even though the tape's uncompressed capacity is supposed to be 800GB. I have noticed that in one ...
2 votes
1 answer
87 views

Are sony lto6 tapes mp or bf?

Most lto tapes specify MP or BaFe on their labels. Sony ltx2500g tapes dont. I have two ibm lto6 decks and want to try to keep different tape brands and particle formulations on different machines ...
5 votes
1 answer
290 views

LTO-8 tapes long-term storage rules

I have a bunch of tapes LTO-8 written in LTFS by HPE tape-drive. I can not find any rules for reliable physical storage for the tapes. I have an anti-magnetic case for them, but maybe there are some ...
0 votes
2 answers
516 views

Maximum write speed of HP Ultrium 1760 drive

The write speed of the HP Ultrium 1760 drive is specified as 120MB/s with LTO-4 media and 80MB/s with LTO-3 media. However I get half of that - 80/40 MB/s respectively. The connector is SFF-8482 at ...
0 votes
1 answer
287 views

tar/dd - Error writing to tape drive - Device or resource busy

I tried to pipe tar to dd and use dd to write to tape in order to have progress: export TAPE=/dev/nst0 tar -b 128 -c *| dd of=$TAPE bs=65536 status=progress However I got an error tar: /dev/nst0: ...
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

Device busy when reading from tape drive with tar

When I try to read a tar from tape with tar tvbf 2048 /dev/nst0, it returns: tar: /dev/nst0: Cannot read: Device or resource busy tar: At beginning of tape, quitting now tar: Error is not recoverable:...
2 votes
1 answer
2k views

Can I connect HP Ultrium 1760 drive to LSI Logic SAS 3041E controller using the cable on the picture

I want to connect HP StorageWorks LTO-4 Ultrium 1760 tape drive to LSI SAS 3041E controller using the cable on the photo. The cable is advertised as 0.7M Mini SFF-8482 to SAS 29P SATA . Or an adapter ...
1 vote
1 answer
667 views

Mac - Thunderbolt eGPU + PCIe SAS card for LTO tape drive (SAS card compatibility)

I'm looking for open minded person who can answer my unusual question that might defy logic at first glance but might be valid. Recently I got need for reading LTO tapes that act as archive. I would ...
6 votes
2 answers
393 views

Pre-labelled LTO-6/LTFS tape numbers- Are the tape numbers stored somewhere on the tape?

I have some Fujifilm LTO-6 tapes which come labelled with tape numbers. I'm writing a script and I would like to assign a variable from the tape number. Is this information stored anywhere on the tape?...
2 votes
1 answer
382 views

Does fast-eod make difference with LTO tape?

mt-st has an option: fast-eod: space directly to eod (and lose file number) I run the eod operation with/without this option, but is seems no significant difference. Does fast-eod make difference ...
1 vote
0 answers
31 views

Tape always return zeros from files but with good length

I have a IBM LTO-3 ULT3580-TD3. When I try write something to tape always it returns only zeros but with good length (/size). # dd if=/media/test1 of=/dev/nst0 bs=64k # dd if=/dev/nst0 of=/media/...
5 votes
2 answers
507 views

Tape backup software for putting multiple backup sets on one tape [closed]

I'm currently trying to install a new tape backup environment (LTO 7, hardware is already set up). As LTO 7 tapes provide a LOT of data space (6/15TB per tape), and the backups that need to be stored ...
2 votes
2 answers
4k views

Determining LTO 5 Tape Expiration?

On our production setup we are using LTO 5 for taking backup on weekly basis, Unfortunately we do not have any purchased document for LTO5 tapes due to which we are unable to predict the exact EOL(End ...
4 votes
2 answers
533 views

Are LTO Hardware compression and encryption standardized?

I'm about to setup a backup using an LTO-4 Drive. I know that drives are meant to be compatible to any tape within the past 3 generations (so I should be able to read an LTO-4 tape using an LTO-4, 5 ...
4 votes
4 answers
1k views

What could cause a 'sense error' when setting LTO encryption?

I'm trying to set an encryption key on an LTO-4 drive under Linux. I successfully did this once, power cycled the drive, and now I cannot get the drive to accept the key again. The command I am ...
3 votes
0 answers
366 views

Restore LTFS formatted LTO drive with heavily fragmented data

I'm currently experiencing one of those nice foobar situations where the primary backup of a certain project died and the secondary backup was written on and LTFS formatted LTO-6 - apparently by ...
0 votes
1 answer
794 views

Configure single LTO tape drive over Fiber Channel HBA

How do you set up a single tape storage drive over an FC HBA? As far as I can tell, these things are not "plug and play". The tape drive I bought is an lto-5 FC taken from a tape library. I have ...
1 vote
1 answer
586 views

find out the file system from a tape

Is there any way to find out the file system from a tape under Linux (CentOS)? I need this to figure out if a tape is already LTFS or not. At the moment I know: mtx # for managing a tape library mt #...
5 votes
1 answer
2k views

What kind of algorithm is used in LTO tape hardware compression?

LTO tape drives, from their very first generation, offer hardware compression that, theoretically, allows a maximum of 2 - 2.5x the rated data capacity of each cartridge to be stored, with only a ...
3 votes
3 answers
15k views

How to write to a tape using hardware compression on Linux?

I have an LTO-4 tape connected to a Linux host and Linux creates all the usual devices for this tape as follows: /dev/nst0 /dev/nst0a /dev/nst0l /dev/nst0m /dev/st0 /dev/st0a /dev/st0l /dev/st0m I ...
2 votes
3 answers
595 views

Is it worth using WORM Media for archiving? (Not needed for legal purposes)

Apart from regular backups, there is some data that I want to archive (e.g., old projects that aren't needed anymore). I wonder if there is any benefit to using WORM media instead of regular tapes (...
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

LTO-4 Tape Write Source Throughput Needs

I am looking to begin a tape backup regimen and am looking to keep data flowing to the tape drive in a sufficient manner (120+MBs target sustained) but cannot figure out how to do so without a ...
2 votes
2 answers
322 views

Do LTO tape drive move when switching partition?

As everyone already know, tape winds between BOT and EOT when reading/writing data in the same LTO partition. But what if a tape drive read data in different partitions? Will it move across wraps in ...
7 votes
2 answers
6k views

What does it mean, if all LEDs of an LTO-6 drive are flashing? [closed]

All LEDs of an half height LTO-6 drive are flashing with ~ 4 Hz. An LTO-5 tape is still inside, the drive does not react on commands, the flashing continues after a power cycle. I could not find the ...
0 votes
3 answers
158 views

Reconnecting SAS equipment

I need to reconfigure the cabling between some LTO tape drives and a server. Are they plug and play or do I need to do any configuration? From what I've read so far, it seems that recycling the power ...
1 vote
1 answer
911 views

How to configure the st kernel module for LTO-6 tape drives?

I found a hint to configure the st module in a mail from 2004 redhat mailinglist about a slow LTO-2 drive. modprobe st buffer_kbs=1024 max_buffers=128 max_sg_segs=128 blocking_open=1 Are similar ...
13 votes
2 answers
909 views

Do LTO tapes have spare/unused capacity?

As I understand it, LTO tapes write data in "wraps", where the first wrap unspools the tape into the drive, and the second wrap spools it back into the cartridge. This process is repeated a number of ...
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

Is it possible to upgrade a LTO3 drive to LTO5 or LTO6?

We have a ML6000 Dell tape library with a LTO-3 drive (part number KU838). Can this drive support LTO-5 or LTO-6 via firmware upgrade? I could not find any information about this on Dell pages. Is ...
1 vote
1 answer
416 views

How can I discover the content of a non-descript LTO3?

I've been handed an LTO3 which has been written with content, but I have no idea how it was made. I've been given the task of finding out what is actually stored on the tape. I've tried the usual tar ...
4 votes
1 answer
429 views

Fibre channel: LTO tape overwritten on bus reset

There is a situation that we had at out customer that I'd like to understand better. Here's what happened: A library with LTO tape drives is connected to a fibre channel environment Archiving ...
1 vote
4 answers
1k views

Quantum LTO-4 Drive fails with new tapes and need to be cleaned too often

I have a Quantum LTO-4 HH Original Drive, and recently i'm getting a lot of problems with tapes. For a long time every 3-5 tapes, the drive asks me for a cleaning tape, but lately the drive needs to ...
1 vote
4 answers
1k views

Is it safe to use not ECC RAM for cold backup server?

I need home computer for simple backup task (just cronjob on Linux, it will run once per day): Download file from my production server (in datacenter, it's good server with Xeons & ECC RAM etc.) ...
1 vote
1 answer
273 views

Ultra slow LTO4 read/write (2-3MB/s) SCSI + LSI Ultra 320

So I've installed pcie SCSI card LSI Ultra 320 (which worked fine some time ago on Dell R710/ Dell 2950 with LTO3), during booting I have discovered that sync speed for LTO3 (ultrium 960) is only 40MB,...
3 votes
2 answers
5k views

Bacula: best practise for labeling and initial start

I'm currently starting with bacula for backup and have a few questions for best practices. Current situation: I want to back up a slow changing max. 12TB (currently 8TB) dataset to a external LTO4 ...