On Wed, Apr 07, 2004 at 11:25:10AM -0700, Dege, Robert C. wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm currently having problems restoring files from my amanda backup system.  
> I am able to narrow the problem down to my AIT-2 tape drive.  If I restore 
> files from amanda backups that are still on the holding disk, I have a 
> successful restore.  If I restore files from any of the AIT-2 tapes, I get 
> tar errors.

what platform/OS is your tapehost?

> So I have a few questions:
> 
> 1) When amanda uses tar to backup the data, what is the blocking size that 
> amanda uses?

no idea.

> 2) If anyone here is using an sdx-500 AIT-2 tape drive, what are your dip 
> switches set to? (I'm wondering if I need to enable variable block sizing on 
> the drive).

from the Fine Manual:

        O O O O O O I O
        1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

did you also modify your SCSI tape driver config file (/kernel/drv/st.conf
on Solaris) so the driver can know about particular capabilities of 
the tapedrive?

these tips can be found in:

http://www.sony.jp/products/Professional/DataArchive/pdf/unix216.pdf

> 3) Has anyone else using an AIT tape drive had similar problems?

only with larger tape files, e.g. over ~16Gb in size.  symptom was 
device timeouts on the tape device, and amanda "thought" these dumps
were successful!

> Thanks
> 
> -Rob

chris

-- 
Christopher Linn, (celinn at mtu.edu) | By no means shall either the CEC
Staff System Administrator            | or MTU be held in any way liable
  Center for Experimental Computation | for any opinions or conjecture I
    Michigan Technological University | hold to or imply to hold herein.