> This is not likely a bacula questions, but in the chance that it is, or
> the experience on this list, I figured I would ask.
>
> We've been using LTO3 tapes with bacula for a few years now.  Recently
> I've noticed how variable our tape capacity it, ranging from 200-800 Gb.
>   Is that strictly governed by the compressibility of the actual data
> being backed up?  Or is there some chance that bacula isn't squeezing as
> much onto my tapes as I would expect?
>
> 200Gb is not very much!

These tapes are 400GB native. If you get substantially less than that
you have a configuration problem (you set limits on the volume size or
duration) or a hardware problem. Compression should be handled
entirely and automatically by the tape drive. Bacula does not enable
or disable hardware compression it just passes the data to the drive
and writes as much as it can up until it hits its first hardware
error. At that point bacula calls the tape full and verifies that it
can read the last block. I believe if it can't read the last block
this block will be the first block written on the next volume.

John

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