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Date:      Fri, 20 May 2005 12:16:05 -0300
From:      =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Tulio_Guimar=E3es_da_Silva?= <tuliogs@pgt.mpt.gov.br>
To:        freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Weird behaviour of AIT-3 and (g)tar
Message-ID:  <428DFF35.1000409@pgt.mpt.gov.br>
In-Reply-To: <428D0D79.7010506@rcn.com>
References:  <428CF20F.50607@pgt.mpt.gov.br> <428D0D79.7010506@rcn.com>

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	j4KFG74H064711

Hi Gary,
   ouch! That=B4s quite disappointing... :( We had already noticed this=20
kind of behaviour with DDS-* tapes, but we got some progress varying the=20
block size... and yup, I=B4m really using gzipped data. :S
  For AIT-3, however, i thought this hardware compression was something=20
about using lower tape=B4s phisical-rolling speeds or alikes, but I could=
=20
never really find anything concrete about the methods... the only one=20
thing I found was they could use "variable block sizes", but that=B4s all=
.=20
Again, not many details. Anyway, I=B4m giving up the idea of compression=20
for now.
  If something, I=B4m noticeing that (at least with -b 10) it becomes (a=20
lot) slower with time, but I guess this would be more of a question to=20
the -performance list.
  Add: while writing this message, I remembered to check the 700V=B4s=20
"Product Specification Manual", and they mention something about=20
dual-partitions, but it seems something that needs to be implemented at=20
driver level, since it includes SCSI commands. In this case, I would=20
need to format the tape as a 2-partition one... any clue about if and/or=20
how that works on FreeBSD?
  Thanks again,

Tulio

Gary Corcoran wrote:

> Tulio Guimar=E3es da Silva wrote:
>
>> Hello again,
>>
>>    I=B4m having some trouble putting a Sony SDX-700V SCSI AIT-3 unit t=
o=20
>> work on FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE.
>
> ...
>
>>  Besides the speed, hardware compression seems to not being funcional=20
>> either. I already tried every 4 possible dip switch setting for=20
>> compression, but I am still not able to transfer a 180GB archive to a=20
>> (should-be) 260GB medium.
>
>
> I can't help you with most of your problems, but regarding the=20
> "compression"...
>
> I would guess that if you have 180GB to backup, it's not all text.  :)
> When I last used a tape drive years ago, when writing to a 2GB tape
> that would supposedly hold 4GB compressed, I could fit only about 1.9GB
> before the tape was full.  Turning off hardware compression, I could fi=
t
> 2GB.  The problem was that I was saving already compressed multimedia=20
> files,
> and the tape drive's "compression" just added overhead and took up=20
> more space.
> So unless you're backing up text or similar files, don't believe the
> marketing hype about getting 2x the amount onto your tapes...
>
> Gary


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