[SunRescue] tape as block device?

[Kurt Huhn]

Thanks Greg,

I'm aware of the posisble consequences, but right now I need to get some
data stored temporarily then moved back.  I have no spare HDs or external
cases for them, so that's why I'm wondering about using the tape drive.
I've thought of mounting NFS volumes, but this is a *lot* of data, and my
other Sparcs don't have enough storage on them to hold it.

Thanks for your concern.  Mabey I'll just bite the bullet and skip down to
the local used computer reseller and see what he has in stock for external
storage.

Kurt

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg A. Woods <woods at most.weird.com>
To: rescue at sunhelp.org <rescue at sunhelp.org>
Date: Thursday, March 02, 2000 9:52 PM
Subject: Re: [SunRescue] tape as block device?


>[ On Friday, March 3, 2000 at 00:25:18 (-0800), Kurt Huhn wrote: ]
>> Subject: [SunRescue] tape as block device?
>>
>> Is it possible to use a tape drive as a mounted volume with Solaris 2.6?
I
>> recently came into possesion of a 8mm drive, and I'm wondering if I can
use
>> it to do this.
>
>I don't know if you can or not, but I'd *STRONGLY* recommend against
>even trying!
>
>This was possible with the QIC-02 drive originally available for AT&T
>3B2's (and perhaps the 3b1 too).  The tape had to be "formatted"
>(i.e. had to have a logical block structure laid down onto it) first.  I
>think in order to save time they the formatter also laid down a
>filesystem (i.e. was equivalent to format & mkfs).
>
>However even with that drive, which was reasonably quick about shuffling
>back and forth, the amount of shuffling back and forth necessary just to
>do a simple 'ls' was extraordinary!
>
>Even with the most recent generation of Exabyte drives I suspect you'd
>be on the verge of damaging the drive, and certainly the tape, if you
>used it for more than the most basic one-time operations.
>
>--
> Greg A. Woods
>
>+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods at acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
>Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods at weird.com>
>
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