I'm using a Bacula setup in conjunction with a Dell PV-124T which has 16 LTO-5 tapes. The system works correctly except that the tapes become extremely quickly. There is no consistency between the amount written to each tape though it is generally in the range of 30-130gb - far less then the expected volume.

I'm not getting an error messages in either dmesg or kern.log, there are no errors when swapping between tapes bacula simply gets back a -1 from the tape drive:

bacula-sd End of Volume "Tape13" at 3:8729 on device "LTO5-Drive1" (/dev/nst0). Write of 1048576 bytes got -1.

bacula-sd Re-read of last block succeeded.

My dir:

Pool {
  Name = LTO5
  Pool Type = Backup
  Recycle = yes                       # Bacula can automatically recycle Volumes
  AutoPrune = yes                     # Prune expired volumes
  Volume Retention = 45 days          # one year
}

Storage {
  Name = LTO5
  Address = localhost                # N.B. Use a fully qualified name here
  SDPort = 9103
  Password = "<password>"
  Device = PV-124T
  Media Type = LTO5
  Autochanger = Yes
}

Client {
  Name = bacula-fd-local
  Address = localhost
  FDPort = 9102
  Catalog = MyCatalog
  Password = "<password>"          # password for FileDaemon
  File Retention = 45 days            # 30 days
  Job Retention = 6 months            # six months
  AutoPrune = yes                     # Prune expired Jobs/Files
}
JobDefs {
  Name = "DefaultJob"
  Type = Backup
  Level = Incremental
  Client = bacula-fd-local
  Messages = Standard
  Pool = LTO5
  Priority = 10
  Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/%c.bsr"
}
Job {
  Name = "HeritageJob"
  JobDefs = "DefaultJob"
  FileSet = "HeritageSet"
  Schedule = "WeeklyCycle2"
  Storage=LTO5
}

My sd:

Storage {                             # definition of myself
  Name = bacula-sd
  SDPort = 9103                  # Director's port     
  WorkingDirectory = "/var/lib/bacula"
  Pid Directory = "/var/run/bacula"
  Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 20
  SDAddress = 127.0.0.1
}

Device {
     Name = LTO5-Drive1
     Drive Index = 0
     Media Type = LTO5
     Device Type = Tape
     Archive Device = /dev/nst0
     Changer Device = /dev/sg4
     AutomaticMount = yes;               # when device opened, read it
     AlwaysOpen = yes;
     RemovableMedia = yes;
     RandomAccess = no;
     AutoChanger = yes;
     Maximum File Size = 10G
 #    Maximum Spool Size = 50G
 #    Maximum Job Spool Size = 20G # will need this is there are concurrent jobs
     Maximum Block Size = 1024k
     Spool Directory = /home/bacula/tapehold

     Alert Command = "sh -c 'tapeinfo -f %c |grep TapeAlert|cat'"
   }

Autochanger {
        Name = PV-124T
        Device = LTO5-Drive1
        Changer Command = "/etc/bacula/scripts/mtx-changer %c %o %S %a %d"
        Changer Device = /dev/sg4
}

If anyone could suggest any possible routes to a solution or perhaps mistakes I've made in config I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,

Bill