Re: LTO support

[Brett Lymn <blymn%internode.on.net@localhost>]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 07:55:52AM +0200, Pouya Tafti wrote:
> 
> - is using an LTO drive for manual backups (or backups at this tiny scale) a fundamentally dumb idea?
> 

My view is, no, it is not a dumb idea.  People keep saying tape is dead
but it keeps going.  It is simple, robust and pretty reliable.

> - how well-supported and widely-used are they on NetBSD (wrt both kernel devices and userland tools)?
> 

I have used both LTO 2 and LTO 4 with SCSI interfaces on NetBSD, they
work fine (though I hit a multi-tape bug recently but that has been
fixed)

> - are there reliable strategies to split a larger ZFS volume across several smaller cartridges (LTFS seems not to support splits)?
> 

Unsure about splitting a zfs volume backup across tapes...

> - are there specific caveats to watch out for (e.g. if used drives are to be avoided, or would end up being cost blackholes necessitating further equipment, obsolete media, etc.)?
> 

Not really, just make sure you get a tape drive with a usable interfce,
I recall seeing a lot of very cheap fibre channel drives when I looked,
they could be problematic because you need a FC hba and fibre to make
them go and I don't think NetBSD has any FC drivers.  All my drives are
the old style paralell scsi, of course, you need a scsi card for those.
I am not 100% certain but I expect the SAS drives would work fine too.

-- 
Brett Lymn
--
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