Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!brchh104!brchs1!bnr.ca!rice.edu!sun-spots-request From: "flint@cutmcvax.cs.curtin.edu.au"@cc.curtin.edu.au Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun Subject: Writing small files to tape Keywords: No Digest Subjects during Flush Message-ID: <4084@brchh104.bnr.ca> Date: 27 Jun 91 20:22:00 GMT Sender: news@brchh104.bnr.ca Organization: Sunspots, Flush Mode Lines: 49 Approved: sun-spots@rice.edu X-Original-Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 16:30 +8:00 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS; site cc.curtin.edu.au Path: cutmcvax!flint Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun,alt.sys.sun Subject: Writing small files to tape Message-ID: From: flint@cutmcvax.cs.curtin.edu.au (Daniel Baldoni) Date: 17 Jun 91 08:17:03 GMT Sender: news@cutmcvax.cs.curtin.edu.au (Usenet News System) Organization: Curtin University of Technology, Computing Science Keywords: QIC-150, tape, dd, write, vmunix, system call, BUG Nntp-Posting-Host: cutmcvax.cs.curtin.edu.au Lines: 59 Recently, I've come across an annoying problem while trying to write some small files to our tape drive. We suspect it's a problem with the SCSI tape device driver. Here's the session: cain-22> dir file.1 -rw------- 1 flint staff 240 Jun 13 10:27 file.1 Firstly, just to show not a problem with dd or the write system call: cain-28> dd if=file.1 of=tmp 0+1 records in 0+1 records out Now, attempt the same operation but to tape: cain-29> dd if=file.1 of=/dev/rst0 dd: write: Invalid argument 0+1 records in 0+1 records out Note that adjusting the block-size does not help in any way. What is interesting is that tar works fine with the same small file. We're running SunOS 4.1.1 on an IPC - the tape drive is a QIC-150. Actually, we've got the same problem on two IPC's (with two tape drives) - so it's not likely a hardware fault. If you've got any idea on how to fix this, PLEASE let me know (preferrably via e-mail). -- Daniel Baldoni