Backup Strangeness

[Mike Mitchell]

    I'm having a similar problem with Tar on the 8mm Exabyte drive.
    I use the verbose mode of Tar after using mt to get to the end of a
    tape, every thing looks good on the screen i.e. files are added to
    the tape, etc.  But when I'm done, often nothing has been written to
    the tape.  I've been told that there is a screw-up in the time-outs
    for different operating system processes or at least a mis-match in
    time-out lengths.  It seems that when the load average is greater
    than the number of processors (roughly) that the system starts
    screwing up.  Supposedly 3.3.1 to be released in mid September
    (I'm told) will fix this problem.  Till then I keep duplicate
    tapes and cuss a lot.

    Mike Mitchell
    Department of Chemistry
    University of Houston
    mitchell at uhrcc2.crcc.uh.edu