On Tuesday 30 December 2003 17:47, Scott Mcdermott wrote:
>Richard Bond on Tue 30/12 14:34 -0800:
>> "By Design" is the official answer, to prevent overwriting
>> data you have already saved.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> 1. Reading it all in and then writing it all back out
>> again are two more opportunities for entropy (and Murphy )
>> to get at your data.
>>
>> 2. tape heads have limited lifespans compared to the rest
>> of your computers.
>>
>> tapes are cheap compared the cost of losing data and the
>> labor to restore it.  Buy more tape, that's a better use
>> of your time and money.
>
>Um, both of those assume I've taken the tape out of the
>drive and/or used the rewinding tape device.  Why not just
>leave it at the current filemark and if it's still there at
>same tell position on next run, just resume backup there at
>next filemark? If tape leaves drive, just fsf to the
>filemark that we left off at, no need to rewrite any data.
>Don't see how this strategy would cause undue wear and tear
>on tape device.

Each drive seems to interpret the seof command different from the next 
one, even if the only diff is brand name sticker on the front of it.

Mine also seems to work, but I've also dealt with a couple of (spit) 
travans too.  3, all HP's, TR-4's, and all did different 
interpretations of the seof command, only one of which was actually 
correct.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP@1400mhz  512M
99.22% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
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by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.