[rescue] Sun 20/40G 8mm tape drive (Exabyte 8900) - blocking factor / throughput ?

[vom513]

Hello all,

Playing around with one of these connected to an SS20 running Solaris 9.  I added it correctly to st.conf based on Sun’s docs.  I’ve tested it on both the onboard 50pin esp bus as well as an SBUS Qlogic ISP card.

I’m seeing the same behavior as the second message in this thread:

http://www.linuxmisc.com/3-solaris/f04decafd0af71a2.htm

By default, I get ~ 1.3 MB/s (I’m just tar’ing up /usr - ~ 900 MB).

Here is one of my tar commands:

time tar cpfb /dev/rmt/1cn 480 -C /usr/ .

Ive tried the blocking factor mentioned (which my math puts at 480).  I don’t seem to see any difference / improvement - speed is still the same.

I’ve also tried the ‘h’ and ‘u’ density rmt devices with no change.  I’ve tried ‘c’ and no ‘c’ as well.

Does anyone know if there is something else I may be missing or otherwise how to get this thing to get close to it’s rated speed ( ~ 3MB/sec - so double what I’m getting).

Thanks.