> A DLE using tape spanning from a client (amanda 2.5.1p3 Debian/Sarge)
> to server (2.5.2p1 SGI/Irix) just seems to dump **extremely** slowly:
> so far in ~8hrs not even one chunk of 9GB has made it to tape. All the
> other DLEs (non-spanning) on that client dump as fast as the network
> allows and all the other DLEs (local, with or without spanning) dump
> as fast as the tape drive can stream. 

Just a wild guess: are you sure it could not be a network problem? I
had a similar problem recently, it occured that the client lost it
ethernet negociation to the ethernet switch and just any type of
network transaction to/from thi client was terribly slow.

Best regards,

Olivier