I'm looking for help with an LTO4 tape writing problem.

btape:
    tape 1 : fine, but ran at about 55MB/s
    tape 2 : failed after a few 100GB
    tape 3 : failed after a few 100GB
    tape 4 : failed after hours of running at only 10MB/s

JobId 0: Fatal error: Unable to write EOF. ERR=dev.c:1745 ioctl MTWEOF
    error on "LTO4-Drive1" (/dev/nst0). ERR=Input/output error.

Any thoughts?

Rory

On 28/01/11, Rory Campbell-Lange (rory AT campbell-lange DOT net) wrote:
> I'm having problems writing to tapes in my DELL PV124T tape library,
> which has been running fine for 6 months or so (it is second hand and
> about 2 years old). It is connected via a SAS HBA on a Linux Debian
> machine running a 2.6.33-2-amd64 custom compiled kernel to support the
> mvsas module.
> 
> (boot messages:
>     ... scsi 1:0:1:0: Sequential-Access QUANTUM  ULTRIUM 4        2210 PQ: 0 
> ANSI: 5
>     ... st 1:0:1:0: Attached scsi tape st0
>     ... st 1:0:1:0: st0: try direct i/o: yes (alignment 4 B)
>     ... st 1:0:1:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 1
> )
> 
> I'm running Bacula in a single-host only arrangement. Bacula is patched
> (in response to a dare from Dan Langille) version of 5.0.2 to support
> batch inserts.
> 
> Normally I can write to tape at around 100MB/s with hardware
> compression enabled.
> 
> I've recently put in a set of new tapes, and cleaned the tape head. Two
> attempts at a roughly 8 tape backup have failed on the 2nd or 3rd tapes. I've
> reset all the tapes by rewinding and writing WEOF but the error is
> persistent.
> 
> Fixing this problem is somewhat complicated by the fact that the tape
> library is in a rack in our data centre. Consequently I've run 'btape
> fill' over the first 4 tapes in the library, with the following results:
> 
>     tape 1 : fine, but ran at about 55MB/s
>     tape 2 : failed after a few 100GB
>     tape 3 : failed after a few 100GB
>     tape 4 : failed after hours of running at only 10MB/s
> 
> The failures are announced with the following error message:
> JobId 0: Fatal error: Unable to write EOF. ERR=dev.c:1745 ioctl MTWEOF
>     error on "LTO4-Drive1" (/dev/nst0). ERR=Input/output error.
> 
> The failures are concurrent with the following kernel messages:
> 
>     kernel: [212500.667965] st0: Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
>     kernel: [212500.667971] Info fld=0x0
>     kernel: [212500.667973] st0: Add. Sense: Write error
>     kernel: [212595.537383] st0: Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
>     kernel: [212595.537389] st0: Add. Sense: Write error
> 
> I'd be very grateful for some advice about what might be going wrong.
> 
> Thanks
> Rory

-- 
Rory Campbell-Lange
rory AT campbell-lange DOT net

Campbell-Lange Workshop
www.campbell-lange.net
0207 6311 555
3 Tottenham Street London W1T 2AF
Registered in England No. 04551928

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