On Mon, May 01, 2006 at 10:20:13AM -0400, Guy Dallaire wrote:
> Is there a way to tell amanda to wait until x% of the backups have been
> dumped on the holding disk before it starts to put the files to tape ?
> 
> Right now, my tape drive seems to start/stop often and I don't think it's
> good for the tapes/the motors/the performance.

I can think of three scenarios for causing this:
 a) one or more DLE's bypassing the holding disk and the combination
    of dumping, network, and feeding the drive is too slow
 b) your tape is really high speed relative to your computer and
    interface (I just had this with an lto drive and old scsi card)
 c) you have a lot of small DLE's

For c, I don't think waiting for X% to complete would help.  Amanda doesn't
tape from holding disk until a DLE is complete and I think there would
always be a pause between DLEs.

For b it is a hardware issue and for a, unless compounded by b, you have
to get the DLEs to the holding disk rather than direct.


As to a direct answer to your question, there was a "taperwait" patch
posted to the hackers list.  You could find that and see if it fits
your needs.  The patch was not incorporated as further discussion on
the list suggested an alternative design which is awaiting development.

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
 4455 Province Line Road        (609) 252-0159
 Princeton, NJ  08540-4322      (609) 683-7220 (fax)