Re: 20GB 8MM tape drive on RS6000: Best settings?

The documentation IDS_7.3 for Informix 7.30 on RS6000 says to following for OnArchive: 4. OnArchive tape drives/tape drivers: OnArchive has been tested and is supported on this platform only with 8mm tape drives. The tape device needs to be configured to have block size of 512 and to use extended file marks. I do not know if the same applies for ontape. Personally, I would perform some backups and restores and then assume it works. But: the larger the physical blocksize the the greater the risk for hardware read/write problems. Regards Irwin Goldstein wrote: > I just completed an install of a 20GB (40GB compressed) external 8MM > differential SCSI tape drive on a RS6000/J40. I configured it for a blcok > size of 64K through SMIT (it had defualted to 1K) and set the Informix tape > block size to match. A level 0 archive which used to take 3.5 hours on an > internal 5GB 8MM drive finished in just under a half hour! (About 10GB.) > While I am quite pleased with the results, I'm also a bit skeptical. > > Has anyone had experience with this tape drive with Informix? Are the > settings I used actually working? At some point in the near future I > intend to restore the level 0 to another machine as a test, but in the > meantime confirmation from someone else who has used/is using this drive > would be nice. > > TIA, > > Irwin Goldstein > Objective Software Systems, Inc. -- Helmut Leininger Bull AG / Vienna Unix Support Email: Helmut.Leininger@bull.net This opinion is mine and not necessarily that of my employer. No guarantees whatsoever.