Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mailrus!bcm!rice!sun-spots-request
From: frnkmth!jon@uunet.uu.net (Jonathan Yavner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Dump parameters for Exabyte
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <10319@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 25 Jul 90 23:24:22 GMT
Sender: root@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 14
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
X-Refs:  Original: v9n276
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 283, message 4
Originator: spots@titan.rice.edu

I have conducted tests on 106m consumer 8mm videotapes.  They work okay in
Exabyte drives, but you can only fit 1.075 gigabytes onto them.  Two
gigabytes is the MAXIMUM tape size the drive will take, but 112 meters is
apparently not the largest size of tape available.

The parameters we use are
	/etc/dump 0ubdsf 20 54000 6000 $tapehost:$tapedrive $fsname

The use of 20 rather than 50 as the block size reduces "broken pipe"
errors caused by large data blocks on the Ethernet (according to Sun).
Exabyte is a streaming drive and apparently always writes 126-block
records.  The actual tape density is very high, too large a number for
'dump' to handle, so the 54000/6000 combination is used to fake the
desired tape length.