Networker

Re: [Networker] tape drive hardware compression a bad thing?

2003-01-30 03:12:01
Subject: Re: [Networker] tape drive hardware compression a bad thing?
From: "Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen AT KVAERNER DOT COM>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 03:12:08 -0500
Jim Lane wrote:
>I recently had a contractor/consultant onsite to review my Networker
>setup. among other things he insisted that using hardware compression on
>a tape library is a "bad thing". the closest thing to an explanation I
>ever heard was that it might cause data loss somehow and that Legato
>wouldn't help me if it did. since contractors have a better relationship
>with management than I do he just called STK onsite and had them turn
>compression off on my 9710. I'm wondering if anybody out there has ever
>heard anything like this before? does anybody have any experience of the
>possible effects, on either reliability or performance, of tape hardware
>compression?

Client side compression used to be neccessary with DLT4000. The hardware
was too good at compressing text data and tape drive did not get enough
data and the drive started to shoe shine. You are not supposed to have the
same problem with DLT7000.


The people who do legato support for us recommend that we use client side
compression instead of hardware compression. That is what we have done for
all systems except netware.

Client side compression reduces the load on the server and simplifies the
network connection (1 gigE is easier to handle than 3). This reduces the
cost of the backup system without reducing the performance.

It might also mean that you can avoid upgrading the client network
connection from 100mb/s to gigE.

greetings,

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