Here are a few more kernel configuration files for tape drives that are larger/newer than those included in with IRIX. These are compliments of a web search and I don't have the specific tape drives to test with, so no guarantees.
In an attempt to consolidate, the last four
were recopied from videobrat's 2005 nekochan post
.
In a follow up to videobrat's original post, LoWeN mentions that an additional piece of <licensed> IRIX software is required to allow the use of tape drives larger than a DLT IV. The additional software mentioned by LoWeN is an asynchronous personality daemon, or APD. Here's a forum post by videobrat
where he describes problems with a Quantum LTO-3 drive used without APD
- and a follow up post where he mentions that
an HP LTO-3 drive he got as a replacement for the Quantum LTO-3 worked without APD
.
VideoBrat's initial problems with the Quantum LTO-3 drive may have been the result of a typographical error in the kernel configuration file he used, rather than the lack of APD software. The first line of the IRIX kernel config file he used read:
{ DATTAPE, TPDAT, 8,
7
, "CERTANCE", "
ULTRIUM 3
", 0, 0, {0},
- the fourth field in that line "7", should reflect the total number of spaces in the fifth field ("ULTRIUM 3"), which is actually 9 spaces. To comply with SGI's guidelines, it should have read
{ DATTAPE, TPDAT, 8,
9
, "CERTANCE", "
ULTRIUM 3
", 0, 0, {0},
(the copy quoted below is the edited version).
I don't have the APD software, and so far that hasn't been a problem with backups and partial restores using the non-APD HP LTO-1 I tested with. In the absence of the APD software, the best practice may be to test a non-APD backup *before* a critical system back up is done. (
UPDATE
: the list of successfully tested drives larger than DLT IV now includes an IBM LTO-2, a Quantum (Certance) LTO-2HH, and a Quantum SDLT320 - follow the thread for additional details).
There's not much in TechPubs on APD beyond some <similar> customer letters <
scroll down to see the list
>, and an indirect mention
in the IRIX 6.5.30 Release Announcement
that certain drives <that need the APD software> would appear in "mt status" as an "Async Personality Device".
I suspect that <among other things> the IRIX asynchronous personality daemon *might* provide for faster read/write performance, but was also intended as a marketing device to guide customers contemplating the purchase of a tape drive back to SGI. One source that might shed additional light on the subject is
Sony's Unix Configuration Guide v2.24
. In that manual Sony recommends using APD v2.7 for their AIT-3 and SAIT-1 drives, but also provides a IRIX kernel configuration file to allow "testing without APD" <perhaps Sony's way of backdooring APD when Sony's potential customers balked at having to purchase an APD license just to test Sony's drives> . Sony's inclusion of a 'test' kernel driver at least suggests some drives will function without the addition of the APD software, and might hint that not using APD doesn't result in a performance hit - it would hardly behoove Sony to provide a method to test their drives that resulted degraded performance. In either case, the ability to use any of the drives listed below could still offer backup capacities greater than DDS4 or DLT IV.
So if anyone does try one and have success, please post a follow up note.
HP Ultrium 1 / LTO-1
Code:
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/* HP Ultrium 1 / LTO-1 */
{ DATTAPE, TPDAT, 2, 7, "HP", "Ultrium", /*LTO-1*/, 0, 0, {0},
MTCAN_BSF|MTCAN_BSR|MTCAN_APPEND|MTCAN_COMPRESS|MTCAN_PREV|
MTCAN_SYNC|MTCAN_SPEOD|MTCAN_CHKRDY|MTCAN_VAR|MTCAN_SETSZ|
MTCAN_SILI|MTCAN_SEEK|MTCAN_CHTYPEANY,
/* minimum delay on i/o is 4 minutes, because when a retry is
* performed, the drive retries a number of times, and then
* rewinds to BOT, repositions, and tries again. */
40, 5*60, 20*60, 20*60, 3*3600, 512, 512*512,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
IBM LTO2
Code:
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/* IBM LTO-2 / Ultrium-TD2 */
{ DATTAPE, TPDAT, 3, 11, "IBM", "ULTRIUM-TD2", 0, 0, {0},
MTCAN_BSF|MTCAN_BSR|MTCAN_APPEND|MTCAN_SETMK|
MTCAN_PREV|MTCAN_SYNC|MTCAN_SPEOD|MTCAN_CHKRDY|MTCAN_VAR|
MTCAN_SETSZ|MTCAN_SILI|MTCAN_SEEK|MTCAN_COMPRESS,
40, 5*60, 10*60, 10*60, 3*3600, 512, 256*512,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
IBM LTO3
Code:
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/* IBM LTO-3 / Ultrium-TD3 */
{ DATTAPE, TPDAT, 3, 11, "IBM", "ULTRIUM-TD3", 0, 0, {0},
MTCAN_BSF|MTCAN_BSR|MTCAN_APPEND|MTCAN_SETMK|
MTCAN_PREV|MTCAN_SYNC|MTCAN_SPEOD|MTCAN_CHKRDY|MTCAN_VAR|
MTCAN_SETSZ|MTCAN_SILI|MTCAN_SEEK|MTCAN_COMPRESS,
40, 5*60, 10*60, 10*60, 3*3600, 512, 256*512,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
Quantum SuperDLT-1
Code:
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/* Quantum SuperDLT-1 */
{ DECDLT, TPDLT, 7, 9, "QUANTUM", "SuperDLT1", 0, 0, {0},
MTCAN_BSF | MTCAN_BSR | MTCAN_APPEND | MTCAN_SPEOD |
MTCAN_CHKRDY | MTCAN_VAR | MTCAN_SETSZ | MTCAN_SILI |
MTCAN_SEEK | MTCAN_SYNC | MTCAN_CHTYPEANY | MTCAN_COMPRESS,
20, 8*60, 20*60, 5*60, 3*3600, 4096, 64*1024,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
HP Ultrium-3/LTO-3 <originally provided by
videobrat in this nekochan post
>
Code:
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/* HP LTO3 / Ultrium 3 */
{ DATTAPE, TPDAT, 2, 9, "HP", "Ultrium 3", 0, 0, {0},
MTCAN_BSF|MTCAN_BSR|MTCAN_APPEND|MTCAN_SETMK|MTCAN_PART|MTCAN_PREV|
MTCAN_SYNC|MTCAN_SPEOD|MTCAN_CHKRDY|MTCAN_VAR|MTCAN_SETSZ|
MTCAN_SILI|MTCAN_AUDIO|MTCAN_SEEK|MTCAN_CHTYPEANY|MTCAN_COMPRESS,
40, 5*60, 20*60, 20*60, 3*3600, 512, 512*512,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
Quantum (Certance) LTO-2
Code:
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/* Certance LTO-2 / Ultrium 2 */
{ DATTAPE, TPDAT, 8, 9, "CERTANCE", "ULTRIUM 2", 0, 0, {0},
MTCAN_BSF|MTCAN_BSR|MTCAN_APPEND|MTCAN_SETMK|
MTCAN_PREV|MTCAN_SYNC|MTCAN_SPEOD|MTCAN_CHKRDY|MTCAN_VAR|
MTCAN_SETSZ|MTCAN_SILI|MTCAN_SEEK|MTCAN_COMPRESS,
40, 5*60, 10*60, 10*60, 3*3600, 512, 256*512,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
Quantum (Certance) LTO3
Code:
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/* Quantum LTO3 / Ultrium 3 */
{ DATTAPE, TPDAT, 8, 9, "CERTANCE", "ULTRIUM 3", 0, 0, {0},
MTCAN_BSF|MTCAN_BSR|MTCAN_APPEND|MTCAN_SETMK|MTCAN_PART|MTCAN_PREV|
MTCAN_SYNC|MTCAN_SPEOD|MTCAN_CHKRDY|MTCAN_VAR|MTCAN_SETSZ|
MTCAN_SILI|MTCAN_AUDIO|MTCAN_SEEK|MTCAN_CHTYPEANY|MTCAN_COMPRESS,
40, 5*60, 20*60, 20*60, 3*3600, 512, 512*512,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
HP LTO-4 (Model 1760) - provided by hhoffman
in this nekochan topic.
Code:
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/* HP LTO4 / Ultrium 4 */
{ DATTAPE, TPDAT, 2, 9, "HP", "Ultrium 4", 0, 0, {0},
MTCAN_BSF|MTCAN_BSR|MTCAN_APPEND|MTCAN_SETMK|MTCAN_PART|MTCAN_PREV|
MTCAN_SYNC|MTCAN_SPEOD|MTCAN_CHKRDY|MTCAN_VAR|MTCAN_SETSZ|
MTCAN_SILI|MTCAN_AUDIO|MTCAN_SEEK|MTCAN_CHTYPEANY|MTCAN_COMPRESS,
40, 5*60, 20*60, 3*3600, 512, 256*512, 512*512,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
The following were also provided by videobrat <
in this original post
>:
Quantum SDLT 220
Code:
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/* Quantum SDLT220 drive */
{ DECDLT, TPDLT, 7, 7, "QUANTUM", "SDLT220", 0, 0,
{0}, MTCAN_BSF | MTCAN_BSR | MTCAN_APPEND | MTCAN_SPEOD |
MTCAN_CHKRDY | MTCAN_VAR | MTCAN_SETSZ | MTCAN_SILI | MTCAN_SEEK|
MTCAN_SYNC | MTCAN_CHTYPEANY | MTCAN_COMPRESS | MTCAN_SETDEN,
20, 8*60, 20*60, 5*60, 3*3600, 4096, 64*1024,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
Quantum SDLT 320
Code:
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/* Quantum SDLT320 drive */
{ DECDLT, TPDLT, 7, 7, "QUANTUM", "SDLT320", 0, 0,
{0}, MTCAN_BSF | MTCAN_BSR | MTCAN_APPEND | MTCAN_SPEOD |
MTCAN_CHKRDY | MTCAN_VAR | MTCAN_SETSZ | MTCAN_SILI | MTCAN_SEEK|
MTCAN_SYNC | MTCAN_CHTYPEANY | MTCAN_COMPRESS | MTCAN_SETDEN,
20, 8*60, 20*60, 5*60, 3*3600, 4096, 64*1024,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names,
tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
Quantum SDLT 600
Code:
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/* Quantum SDLT600 drive */
{ DECDLT, TPDLT, 7, 7, "QUANTUM", "SDLT600", 0, 0, {0, 0, 0, 0 },
MTCAN_BSF|MTCAN_BSR|MTCAN_APPEND|MTCAN_SPEOD |
MTCAN_CHKRDY|MTCAN_VAR| MTCAN_SETSZ|MTCAN_SILI|MTCAN_SEEK|
MTCAN_SYNC|MTCAN_CHTYPEANY | MTCAN_COMPRESS | MTCAN_SETDEN,
20, 8*60, 20*60, 5*60, 3*3600, 16384, 64*1024,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names, tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
Sony DTF-2
Code:
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/* SONY GY-8240 DTF2 drive */
{ SONYGY, TPGY2120, 4, 7, "SONY", "GY-8240", 0, 0, {0, 0, 0, 0},
MTCAN_BSF | MTCAN_BSR | MTCANT_RET | MTCAN_CHKRDY | MTCAN_PREV |
MTCAN_SEEK | MTCAN_APPEND | MTCAN_SILI | MTCAN_VAR | MTCAN_SETSZ |
MTCAN_CHTYPEANY | MTCAN_COMPRESS,
20, 100*60, 10*60, 9*60, 9*60, 16384, 256*1024,
tpsc_default_dens_count, tpsc_default_hwg_dens_names, tpsc_default_alias_dens_names,
{0}, 0, 0, 0,
0, (u_char *)0 },
If any one has additional <or alternative> examples, please post them.