Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 09:18:19 -0500 (EST) From: Jeff Wheat <jeff@cetlink.net> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net>, michael dorin <mike@chaski.com>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cheap cheap 4mm tape drive wanted Message-ID: <XFMail.971212092807.jeff@cetlink.net> In-Reply-To: <19971212094531.43742@lemis.com>
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On 12-Dec-97 Greg Lehey wrote: >> Hi there. I just recently bought two of the 4586 drives from >> corpsys.com and have had to return 3 of them so far. They seem to die >> when doing dumps after about 4 hours into the dumps. I have them setup >> under FreeBSD 2.2.5 with an Adaptec 2940UW controller. I have tried to >> use the changer script from corpsys.com's ftp site and it trashed my hard >> drives due to what seems to be changes to the scsi command itself. If you >> could send me any information on how to use these drives with 120meter >> dds2 tapes and amanda backup software I would be very grateful. I would >> really hate to return these drives. > >Well, I don't use dump or amanda. They're fine for backups, but >frequently I need to grab a backup tape and read it in on a system >somewhere else, and you can't rely on the other system having a >compatible dump or amanda. That's why I use tar, which is pretty >universal. > >Having said that, your symptoms as you describe them don't look like >they obviously point to the drive being faulty. I don't use the >changer scripts: you can move to the next cartridge with 'mt offline', >and that's all I need to do. Could you describe the way the drives >"die"? Does that mean they never work again? > >What I do is basically: > >TAPE=/dev/nrst0 export TAPE >tar c /filesys1 >tar c /filesys2 >tar c /filesys3 >mt rewind ># Make a list of what I wrote >tar tv >filesys1 >tar tv >filesys2 >tar tv >filesys3 >mt offline > >In fact, of course, there's a little more shell trickery than that, >but that's all that affects the tape drive. As I said, it works >fine. Why don't you try my method next time a drive "dies", and see >if it still works this way. > >Greg Well for starters, mt offline does not eject eject a tape and move to the next as you described. mt offline will work only if a single tape is inserted by hand. Using the 4 tape or 12 tape magazine simply results in the drive light flashing briefly and nothing else. According to seagate tech support, that is due to unit actually being 2 different devices and in the manual insertation mode, it acts as a tape drive. Otherwise, the unit functions as a changer. With that aside, the problems that we see are that 3/4 of a way through a tape, the unit begins to give write fault errors and the the drive light begins to rapidly flash. The only way to clear this condition is to hit open/close to force the unit to eject the tape. When in this state, issuing a mt rewind command will result in errors that the device is busy. I will attempt to use the tar command and see what happens. I am not confident at all with this company and their drives. Their (corpsys) techsupport states that they bought these drives wholesale direct from seagate, who sold them because they were all returned for repair and damage. It appears that corpsys rebuilds these units by simply swapping around parts. Who knows? Perhaps the non-refurbished units are worth something. These refurbished units aren't worth a damn in my opinion. Regards, Jeff ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Wheat jeff@cetlink.net Senior Engineer CETLink.Net Inc. South Carolina +1.803.327.2754 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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