Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:11687 comp.unix.xenix:4961
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!pyramid!ctnews!starfish!cdold
From: cdold@starfish.Convergent.COM (Clarence Dold)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: dd error?
Message-ID: <936@starfish.Convergent.COM>
Date: 11 Feb 89 01:59:49 GMT
References: <6@holston.UUCP>
Followup-To: comp.unix.questions
Organization: Convergent Technologies, San Jose, CA
Lines: 17

From article <6@holston.UUCP>, by barton@holston.UUCP (barton):
> When attempting to pipe tar output to dd for a
> larger blocking factor with the line:
> tar cf - . | dd obs=512k > /dev/rct0
> I get an error from dd saying: arguement 512k out of range.
Two possibilities:
1) You're maximum process size precludes allocating a buffer of that 
	size.  ( You can probably find the max proc size at boot time )
2) The DMA hardware for the tape drive can't handle a transfer of that
	size.  Some DMA controllers have a transfer count register of
	16 bits, good for 64k worth of transfers, which might correspond
	to 128k bytes to tape, and 33MB to disk.

-- 
Clarence A Dold - cdold@starfish.Convergent.COM         (408) 434-2083
                ...pyramid!ctnews!professo!dold         MailStop 18-011
                P.O.Box 6685, San Jose, CA 95150-6685