> So there is no such thing as tape skipping?  A %used=100 tape will
> have at least 400GB of uncompressed data on it?

I've been told that the IBM TS1120 will do tape skipping, and the
documentation hints at it, but doesn't confirm it.  It allegedly will
keep on moving across the tape at it's minimum speed even it it has no
data to write -- allegedly to completely eliminate shoe shining.  If
this is true, you could end up with a tape with much less than it's
native capacity if you were sending data to it really slowly.

Anyone with a TS1120 that can do a test for me?

I've tried to get this verified one way or the other, but tape vendors
are leery to talk to me these days as they say that I'm an anti-tape guy
who has gone all disk now.  (Not true, but I'm definitely pretty big on
disk as an initial backup target.)

To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and 
type "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to 
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this 
list. You can access the archives at 
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER