Questions tagged [tape]

Tapes are used by a tape backup machine.

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1 answer
22 views

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&...
5 votes
1 answer
70 views

Can SAS Tape Drive (HP StoreEver 6250) used with LSI SAS 9200-8e-HP?

I plan to buy secondhand HP StoreEver 6250 tape drive for backup purpose, but not sure what SAS Card that are compatible with that device and works on ubuntu seamlessly. One of the SAS card that I saw ...
2 votes
1 answer
101 views

Virtual Tape Libraries for Microsoft Data Protection Manager - Replacement for Crystalink Firestreamer?

What VTLs do you all use to allow DPM to store off-site? My current environment uses Microsoft DPM for all of its backups. DPM stores the backups locally just fine, but to get it to store digital ...
12 votes
4 answers
1k views

How to use the full LTO-2 Tape backup capacity of 200/400GB?

I have an Ultrium 448 tape drive, LTO-2 tapes (200/400GB) and I'm using HP Data Protector as the backup client. The system is set to format and overwrite all tapes but I never manage to get more that ~...
3 votes
2 answers
791 views

Restore Legacy Tapes with Veeam

We were previously using VRanger to back up our VMs and then using HP data protector to copy the backups to tape. We have subsequently moved to Veeam, and have decommissioned both VRanger and Data ...
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
196 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 ...
5 votes
3 answers
1k views

Hardware compression on tape drives: does it still make sense?

Does hardware compression still make sense on tape drives, considering the performance of modern CPUs? Also, what should I do if I have some data which is already compressed in GZIP and my drive is ...
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 -...
9 votes
2 answers
9k views

Backup ZFS snapshots to tape (both full and diff)

What would be the best way to implement an LTO tape-based backup system on a ZFS fileserver? I've got about 6TB that need to be backed up on a daily basis, along with an existing HP 1840 LTO4 tape ...
1 vote
1 answer
58 views

mtx returns an error in Windows for an LTO library

I have been using the mtx utility (from Sourceforge) with success in both Linux and Windows environments to manage a tape library. It was last modified in 2008. Today, at a customer site, we used the ...
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 ...
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 -...
0 votes
1 answer
171 views

Bareos: Bscan doesn't recover database entries (Tapes from MySQL new server Postgres Database)

I had an ubuntu server 18.04 running with bareos and mysql database. Monthly I saved data on tapedrive and everything was working fine. Unfortunately I had a servercrash without a backup of the dump ...
2 votes
1 answer
593 views

Tape capacity and backup routine in Linux

I have a HP Ultrium 5-scsi tape device on a Linux server and I'm currently using a HP LTO-5 Ultrium RW (model C7975A) tape and I have a couple of questions regarding this setup and does it work. 1 - ...
4 votes
0 answers
82 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 ...
0 votes
1 answer
128 views

HP 1/8 G2 medium changer not detected in Oracle Linux 8

I have a HP 1x8 G2 Autoloader that connected to a SAN switch, on my VMware environment I have an Oracle Linux that should work with the tape. The problem is after connecting tape to VM, medium changer ...
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 ...
1 vote
0 answers
85 views

IBM LTO4 Backups Failing

I am new to tape backup systems and recently bought a used IBM TS3100 3573-L2U library with a ULT3580-TD4 LTO4 SAS drive as well as some fujifilm tapes. I have followed this guide/HOWTO and am using ...
3 votes
1 answer
251 views

Tar extracting from multi-volume tape whilst computing shasums

As part of our backup system, we replicate zfs datasets from a TrueNAS system to a couple of backup servers, one of which is running TrueNAS Scale and has a LTO-5 tape drive connected. We occasionally ...
2 votes
1 answer
82 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 ...
2 votes
1 answer
454 views

mtx commands to open mailslot on HP MSL tape library

I want to programmatically open tape library via command-line. My HP MSL4048 have 3-tape mailslot and 4 magazines, which I can open from web interface only. Reading manuals I understood that opening ...
2 votes
1 answer
117 views

Activate Tape Encryption on Windows Server

We use windows to make tape (LTO 8) backups with ltfs and now I want to use the hardware encryption. My problem is I can not find a way to activate it. For Linux I found "stenc" but is there something ...
6 votes
2 answers
386 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
370 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 ...
6 votes
5 answers
6k views

Tape vs SSDs backups regarding long-term storage reliability

My question is very specifically about solid state drives, not regular hard drives. I would like to put in place a grandfather-father-son backup scheme, with the SSDs being used for the grandfather ...
5 votes
2 answers
499 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 ...
4 votes
2 answers
530 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 ...
8 votes
2 answers
3k views

Linux LTO-4/5/6 Hardware AES Drive Encryption

For a number of reasons I have been trying to find a way to encrypt my backup tapes. I'm currently running Bacula for my backups and it's support for Drive based encryption is I have to call a script ...
2 votes
2 answers
1k views

How to properly format DAT tape drives

I have been assigned the task of setting up a proper tape drive backup system. Essentially, I will be using "Windows Backup Utility" to run the process. I currently have a Quantum DAT Tape Drive ...
0 votes
1 answer
223 views

AMANDA backup fails with: data read: recv error: shm_ring is cancelled

I have an AMANDA backup process running nightly. About a month ago, we pulled the config into AMANDA 1:3.5.1-build2 (ubuntu package) running on Ubuntu 18.04 (new hardware as well). In the past week ...
0 votes
1 answer
771 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 ...
2 votes
1 answer
71 views

Recycle already formatted DLT IV tapes?

I have a lot of DLT IV Tape Cartridges which were used and written to in DLT 4000 drives. Now I have a DLT VS 160 drive, which uses the same Tape Cardridges but I can't write onto them. Searching ...
1 vote
1 answer
571 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 ...
-2 votes
1 answer
663 views

Fibre Channel Ports and Tape Library

I am looking for advice rather then fix my issue. What should fibre channel port settings be? Currently F_ports, I have a qlogic 5800 sanbox switch connected to quantum scalar i40 lto7 library over ...
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
577 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 (...
0 votes
1 answer
795 views

Quantum Scalar i80 - I see the tape drive, but not changer

I have a Quantum Scalar i80 connected via SAS to a CentOS 6 server. When I look in /proc/scsi/scsi, I see the tape drive, but I don't see the changer. From /proc/scsi/scsi: Host: scsi8 Channel: 00 ...
0 votes
1 answer
666 views

Attaching more than one Server to a Tape Library

We are running multiple Dell PowerEdge's and want to connect them to a Dell TL1000 Tape Library. For my understanding, what we need is HBA cards for each Server to get the SAS connection. I ran into ...
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
314 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 ...
2 votes
3 answers
6k views

How to auto mark tape as free in DPM 2012?

I have a backup server running System Center Data Protection Manager 2012, connected to a couple of tape drives (no library). I also have, of course, some tapes. Tape rotation is manual. The tape ...
4 votes
3 answers
2k views

Compression on tape set..but at 2.27TB..end of space

I have a LTO6 tape inserted tapeinfo -f /dev/st0 Product Type: Tape Drive Vendor ID: 'QUANTUM ' Product ID: 'ULTRIUM 6 ' Revision: '4142' Attached Changer API: No SerialNumber: 'HU1322VW9U' ...
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

Multi-tape Backup Script

Bear with me, this is my first post on any kind of Stack Exchange type of website. I’m working on creating a backup server to store the data from my storage server onto multiple tapes in my tape ...
13 votes
2 answers
886 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 ...
4 votes
4 answers
5k views

Linux tape drive throughput performance statistics

Does anyone know a way, (other than using SystemTap + iostat-scsi.stp script), to get Tape Drive performance statistics? Server: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.7 (Tikanga) Kernel 2.6.18-...
2 votes
3 answers
1k views

Encrypt backups with GPG to multiple tapes

Currently, I use tar to write my backups (ntbackup files) to a tape drive fed by an autoloader. Ex: tar -F /root/advancetape -cvf /dev/st0 *.bkf (/root/advancetape just has the logic to advance to ...
0 votes
2 answers
3k views

How to troubleshoot tape backup issues via mt on Linux for Windows backups?

I have an HP Ultrium 448 tape backup that is being recognized without seeming issue on Ubuntu. I am able to see it at /dev/st0. When I issue mt -f /dev/st0 offline, the tape ejects. When I issue mt ...
6 votes
1 answer
374 views

8mm Data8 tape drive compatibility for Maxell HS-8/112 and 3M D8-112

We have a Exabyte Mammoth-2 tape drive connected to a Solaris 10 box that's currently able to restore any Exabyte media no problem, but we have two other brands of 8mm tape that are shown as "illegal ...

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