Re: Linux backup tape compatibility

[Eric L. Green <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, bob jones wrote:
> Iomega markets a tape called "DittoMax" which uses either an external
> parallel port or an "internal" card interface.

Can't help you there. (By the way, IoMega does not make tapes -- they make
tape DRIVES, sort of like the difference between a CD and a CD-Player). 

> Seagate markets a tape cartridge called "Travan" which in large
> capacities uses a SCSI interface and in small capacities uses a
> "floppy/parallel" interface.

Seagate, again, does not make tapes. But they do make tape drives, and as
far as I can tell all of their (non-parallel) tape drives are compatible
with Linux. Can't help you with the parallel tape drives, I'll let someone
else answer that question. One word of warning: the "TR-3 Extra"  tapes
shipped with many of their "floppy drive" based controllers will not work
with the default Red Hat "ftape" driver, which reads the media byte, says
"I don't know how long this tape is!", and gives up. You'll need to
download the "ftape 4.x"  driver from sunsite or etc. to use that tape. I
don't know why you would anyhow -- the tape costs the same as the TR-4
tape, and holds less than 1/3rd as much. Another word of warning: to use
the "high speed controller" shipped with many of their TR-3 drives, you'll
need to re-compile the kernel. Again, the Seagate Tapestor 8000 doesn't
need a recompile with Red Hat 5.0 and up, so ... (if you have the IDE
version and compile your own kernel, you do need to make sure you have
"IDE Tape Drive Support" enabled). I can verify that both the IDE and SCSI
versions of the Tapestor 8000 work fine with Red Hat Linux -- we've sold a
slew of the suckers. Just use /dev/ht0 for the IDE version and /dev/st0
for the SCSI version.

> If so,is the software Iomega or Seagate marketed or is it the standard
> tar of cpio of Linux/Unix?

We just use the standard "tar" or "cpio". 

Eric Lee Green   [EMAIL PROTECTED]          Executive Consultants
Systems Specialist               Educational Administration Solutions
             See http://members.tripod.com/~latrails


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