Writing small files to tape
"flint at cutmcvax.cs.curtin.edu.au" at cc.curtin.edu.au
"flint at cutmcvax.cs.curtin.edu.au" at cc.curtin.edu.au
Fri Jun 28 06:22:00 AEST 1991
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Path: cutmcvax!flint
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun,alt.sys.sun
Subject: Writing small files to tape
Message-ID: <flint.677146623 at cutmcvax>
From: flint at cutmcvax.cs.curtin.edu.au (Daniel Baldoni)
Date: 17 Jun 91 08:17:03 GMT
Sender: news at cutmcvax.cs.curtin.edu.au (Usenet News System)
Organization: Curtin University of Technology, Computing Science
Keywords: QIC-150, tape, dd, write, vmunix, system call, BUG
Nntp-Posting-Host: cutmcvax.cs.curtin.edu.au
Lines: 59
Recently, I've come across an annoying problem while trying to write some
small files to our tape drive. We suspect it's a problem with the SCSI
tape device driver.
Here's the session:
cain-22> dir file.1
-rw------- 1 flint staff 240 Jun 13 10:27 file.1
Firstly, just to show not a problem with dd or the write system call:
cain-28> dd if=file.1 of=tmp
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
Now, attempt the same operation but to tape:
cain-29> dd if=file.1 of=/dev/rst0
dd: write: Invalid argument
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
Note that adjusting the block-size does not help in any way.
What is interesting is that tar works fine with the same small file.
We're running SunOS 4.1.1 on an IPC - the tape drive is a QIC-150. Actually,
we've got the same problem on two IPC's (with two tape drives) - so it's not
likely a hardware fault.
If you've got any idea on how to fix this, PLEASE let me know (preferrably
via e-mail).
--
Daniel Baldoni
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