Tape backups

[Justin Bennett]

Have fun! It's always a blast, they change drives, technologies, tape
types, and all that crap every 2 seconds, it's hard to stay on top of it.
Especially now that everybody and their brother is making this stuff...


John Seth said:
> After doing a lot more research on Google (due to not finding an
> "Exabyte 8900T" drive), apparently the one I have is an Exabyte Mammoth.
>  I headed over to Exabyte's site with that info and the fact that the
> tapes I have are "160mXL".  I'm not sure if my administrators are
> backwards or what, but they claim the tapes they gave me work w/ that
> drive. Exabyte says they're readable, but not writeable, and that the
> drive should be using AME 170 tapes, and not Metal something-err-other,
> which the 160's are.
>
> If what you say is true, and provided my admin's aren't nuts, I'm going
> to try and rifle thru all the tapes we have to see if the drive will
> work. Otherwise, it looks like I'll be ordering new tapes that Exabyte
> recommends, and going from there.
>
> Thanks for the info... I remember you having issues with tape drives and
> the media, so I'll be sure to keep that in mind while I pull my hair out
> strand by strand.  ;)
>
>   - Tony
>
>
> On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Justin Bennett wrote:
>
>> from your logs it looks like the tape drive doesn't like the tape.
>> There is no formating persay that the OS does, the tape drive does a
>> little initilization on the tape when it's new. Nothing the OS does or
>> you need to worry about. Sometimes you can't switch tapes from one
>> tape drive to another, even if they are the same tape type. I have a
>> DLT80 and DLT1 drive, both use DLT4 tapes, but once a tape is placed
>> in a DLT1 drive it can't be used in the DLT80 with out being degaused
>> (wiped clean with a magnetic device) due to the initilization done by
>> the DLT1. Not to say thats the problem here, but have you tried other
>> tapes? Maybe a new one, also may want to run a cleaing tape if it's
>> been sitting around.
>>
>> John Seth said:
>> > Recently I've gone from a standalone PC with no SCSI, 256MB of RAM,
>> and an AMD 350 CPU to a Quad Processor Xeon 733 w/ 2GB of RAM, and
>> plenty of raid disk space (Dell rackmount systems).  However, this
>> system doesn't have a tape backup, and isn't attached to my
>> company's main tape auto-mounter.  I plugged in an Exabyte 8900T
>> that was lying around collecting dust into an available scsi port
>> and can do the rewind/eject thing with MT, however up to this point,
>> I've never needed to do my own backups to tape (I backup my own
>> server via FTP nightly after using tar/gunzip).
>> >
>> > When I try to create a new backup via tar to the tape, it crashes,
>> or dumps.  When I look at the console, I get some info that makes
>> little sense to me.  Since I'm basically a newbie at backing up to
>> tape, I'm wondering if anyone has some ideas on where I can start.
>> Do I need to format the tape?  and if so, how do I do it?  This
>> system is running RH 8.0 with no Xwin...
>> >
>> > Secondly, on my own personal system, I installed an old floppy tape
>> drive, and wonder if anyone has any ideas for me on where to start
>> with that... Forgive me for sounding desperate, the TLDP website is
>> good, but there's just so much out there, that I'm beginning to be
>> overwhelmed by opinions and ideas.  My system is running Slackware
>> 8, so there's no such thing as 'amanda'...
>> >
>> > Any tips, pointers, and suggestions are welcome :)
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> >
>> >    Tony
>> >
>> > ---
>> > Dell system errors from Exabyte 8900T drive:
>> >
>> > Apr  9 15:26:57 ebonite kernel: st0: Error with sense data: Current
>> st09:00: sense key Illegal Request Apr  9 15:26:57 ebonite kernel:
>> Additional sense indicates Cannot write medium - incompatible format
>> Apr
>> >  9 15:26:57 ebonite kernel: st0: Error with sense data: Current
>> st09:00:
>> > sense key Illegal Request Apr  9 15:26:57 ebonite kernel: Additional
>> sense indicates Cannot write medium - incompatible format Apr  9
>> 15:26:57 ebonite kernel: st0: Error on write filemark.
>>
>>
>> --
>> -------------------------------------------
>> Justin Bennett
>> Red Hat (Linux) Certified Engineer
>> Network Administrator
>> Dynabrade Inc.
>> 8989 Sheridan Dr
>> Clarence, NY 14031
>> 716-631-0100 ext 215


-- 
-------------------------------------------
Justin Bennett
Red Hat (Linux) Certified Engineer
Network Administrator
Dynabrade Inc.
8989 Sheridan Dr
Clarence, NY 14031
716-631-0100 ext 215