First, we use encryption, so compression in the drive doesn't work.
That's why I quoted the native speed.  The HP LTO-2 drives we have do
not write to tape faster than 30 MB/sec.  Look at the specs of the
drive on page 19 of this PDF.
http://www.ultriumlto.com/hp/pdf/11739_div.pdf

IBM's 3580 L23 (LTO-2) drive writes at 35 MB/sec native.
Quantum's HalfHeight LTO2 drive writes at 26MB/sec native.
Tandberg's LTO-2 halfHeight drive writes at 24MB/sec native.

Do you have faster LTO-2 drives?

Austin

On 7/19/06, Justin Piszcz <jpiszcz at lucidpixels.com> wrote:
> 30MB/s? You have some kind of I/O bottleneck there.  Running multiple
> streams with compression, we get about 80-95MB/s max on LTO2.
>
>
> On Wed, 19 Jul 2006, Austin Murphy wrote:
>
> > The max numbers depend on the drive.
> > My HP LTO-2 drives max out at 30 MB/sec native and match down to 10 MB/sec.
> > Below the minimum rate the drive stops and starts as it's buffer fills
> > and empties.  Also known as "shoeshining" due to the need to rewind
> > and reposition after each stop.
> >
> > Austin
> >
> > On 7/19/06, Jim Horalek <jimh at federaledge.com> wrote:
> >> An LTO-3 runs at 80MB/s native and will speed match down to 40MB/s
> >> An LTO-2 runs at 40MB/s and will speed match down to 19MB/s
> >> Below these rates the drive stops.