[2152] in linux-scsi channel archive
Re: Tape writing s-l-o-w
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jeffrey B. Siegal)
Sat Jul 12 21:54:26 1997
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 04:27:39 -0700
To: physmsa@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz (Mr M S Aitchison)
From: jbs@quiotix.com (Jeffrey B. Siegal)
Cc: linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu
Linux seems to have trouble keeping SCSI DAT drives streaming, especially
older drives with small buffers. My drive came off of a much slower
Sun/SPARC system, which was able to keep the drive streaming, while my
Linux PentiumPro can't. Try playing around with the various settings
controlled by mt and the tar block size. There are some software double
buffering utilities on sunsite, but they didn't seem to help me. If you
are willing to upgrade hardware, I'd suggest a newer DAT drive with a large
internal buffer.
---
At 15:49 7/10/97, Mr M S Aitchison wrote:
>A 66MHz 486 running Linux with a T130 card and DAT tape is very slow
>writing a tape (about 10Mb/minute) using simple things like tar. Yet
>the same card and tape with a Pentium running Win95 and arcadia
>software gets a decent speed.
>
>I would have thought that the 486 would have enough speed to keep the
>tape streaming, even with a SCSI card like this. Could there be
>something wrong with the software setup, or do we have to upgrade some
>hardware? (It would be a nuisance installing Linux on the Pentium, or
>upgrading the 486 just in case that will fix it). Has anybody got a
>combination like this running smoothly??
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Mark Aitchison, Physics & Astronomy \_ Phone : +64 3 3642-947 a.h. 3371-225
>University of Canterbury, </ Fax : +64 3 3642-469 or 3642-999
>Christchurch, New Zealand. /) E-mail: phys169@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
>#include <disclaimer.std> (/' Callsign: ZL3TQE
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
