--On Wednesday, January 07, 2004 10:14:30 +0100 JC Simonetti <simonetti-amanda 
AT echo DOT fr> wrote:

> This is a feature of the changer: the next slot is "curslot++".
> Some robotics support a "looped" search: when at last slot, the next slot is 
> first slot, some others don't.
> I have 2 robots with chg-zd-mtx, one supports this loop search, the other one 
> doesn't.
> So concerning my first robot I don't have any problem concerning the order of 
> the tapes when I put them into the tray. And concerning my second robot I 
> have to bear my mind that I have to put my tapes in Amanda order in the tray.

Keep in mind that Amanda finds the right tape by reading the header (unless
you have barcodes and Amanda is set up to use them [does it even use them
when not doing restores?], so you are shortening the life of your tapes by
reading and rewinding tapes you aren't using that night.  Best case is that
it happens to hit the right tape on the first try, worst case is that it reads
them all and finds the correct tape in the lasst slot it tries.  If your tapes
are in reverse order Amanda would have to read them all every night (and two
times or more if you use multiple tapes per run).
   Besides wearing out your tapes, it can also take a fair amount of time
to do all the load/rewind/read/rewind/unload if you have a large library.

Frank

> 
> In your case, if you are in case 2, either you have to check that your tapes 
> are in Amanda order, or you can take your crontab solution writing a "1" the 
> "-slot" file.
> 
> 
> On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 09:56:33 +0100 
> Postaremczak Bernd <Bernd.Postaremczak AT SMS-Eumuco DOT de> wrote:
> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I've a problem with the chg-zd-mtx-Configuration. The Loader has some tapes
>> in it and amanda backs up to one tape (e.g. slot 3). The next tape I want to
>> use is in slot 2, but amanda searches the tape only after slot 3.
>> 
>> If I set the number in the file chg-zd-mtx.conf-slot to 1, then amanda
>> starts to search from slot 1.
>> 
>> How can I config amanda to search everytime from slot 1? I don't find
>> anything. A cronjob, who sets the slot-file before dumping to 1 is not an
>> elegant solution.
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks and regards
>> 
>> Bernd
> 



-- 
Frank Smith                                      fsmith AT hoovers DOT com
Systems Administrator                           Voice: 512-374-4673
Hoover's Online                                   Fax: 512-374-4501