[brlug-general] tape drive issues

[Fernando Vilas]

On Friday 12 October 2007 09:45:10 Ronnie Gilkey wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I'm having some issues with a Benchmark DLT1 tape drive.  What's
> happening is that a daily backup of about 20 GB is taking about 9 hours
> to run.  This is way too long for that little bit of data.  I've checked
> system usage throughout that period with sar reports and the system
> maintains a level of about 96% idle, so the system isn't busy.  For most
> tape modern tape drives 20 GB should take about an hour to backup.  I've
> also checked dmesg for errors, there aren't a lot just these:
>
> st0: Block limits 2 - 16777214 bytes.
> st0: Error with sense data: Info fld=0x2800, Current st09:00: sense key
> Not Ready
> Additional sense indicates Logical unit not ready,initializing cmd.
> required st0: Error with sense data: Current st09:00: sense key Not Ready
> Additional sense indicates Logical unit not ready,initializing cmd.
> required st0: Error 250400f4 (sugg. bt 0x20, driver bt 0x5, host bt 0x4).
> st0: Error 250400f4 (sugg. bt 0x20, driver bt 0x5, host bt 0x4).
> st0: Error on write filemark.
> st0: Error 250400f4 (sugg. bt 0x20, driver bt 0x5, host bt 0x4).
>
> Has anyone else had any problems with this type of tape drive?  Any
> suggestions?  I've posted the scsi_info & sdparm output below.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ronnie

I've seen errors like that when a card or cable is seated well enough to get 
detected, but not function properly.  I think I fixed it using "a bigger 
hammer", but I have a cheap SCSI setup from 1996, and power cables that 
occasionally vibrate loose.

Also, uname -a?  There may be a fix in a newer kernel.

-- 
Thanks,
Fernando Vilas
fvilas at iname.com
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