Subject: Re: scsi tape drives
To: Roger Brooks <R.S.Brooks@liverpool.ac.uk>
From: Chris Jones <cjones@rupert.honors.montana.edu>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 07/23/1999 08:47:44
>>>>> "Roger" == Roger Brooks <R.S.Brooks@liverpool.ac.uk> writes:

Roger> One thing to beware of which applies to any helical-scan tape
Roger> (Exabyte or DAT), and may apply to some other types of device,
Roger> is that the default block sizes in tar and dump are far from
Roger> optimal for modern high-capacity tape drives, and prevent you
Roger> from getting anywhere near the full capacity of the tape.
Roger> AFAIK, with an Exabyte the optimal block size is 56 KB.

I think we used 63k, when we had one of those.  But I don't remember
where we got that number; it might have been out of a manual, or it
might have been out of thin air.

Chris

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------cjones@math.montana.edu
Chris Jones                                          cjones@honors.montana.edu
           Mad scientist at large                    cjones@nervana.montana.edu
"Is this going to be a stand-up programming session, sir, or another bug hunt?"