Topic: Onstream SCSI tapedrives

[Gerard Mokkenstorm]

I am looking for an affordable tapedrive solution...

After reading all the posts about tapedrives, one thing i am still not sure about:

IDE Onstream tapedrives are not supported but what about the SCSI types ?

connected to a 2940UW controller ? can i expect the same troubles or is this just fine for SME 5.1.2

tia
gerard

[Gerard Mokkenstorm]

huh, just clickhappy.....

i wasn't finished yet, here is my second question

The documentations states that the scsi controller must have bios to boot from  a scsi disk.

In my setup the only scsi device will be a tapedrive.
I asume this is possible and i can boot from the IDE harddisk ?

tia

Gerard

[Kelvin]

Gerard,

If you searched through previous posts, you would see that I've asked the same thing about OnStream SCSI drives before with no replies.

In actual fact, I'm in the middle of reliability testing using IDE Onstream drives (DI-30) and so far so good. If tests continue to be positive, I might post a How-To on this (because I use a LOT of DI-30 drives and it has always been a sticking point that there is no so called native support for these drives under SME).

As for SCSI controllers and boot BIOSes, if you only drive a tape unit with the SCSI controller, then you do not need one that has a boot bios.

Kelvin

[Kelvin]

Hmmm, I seem to have jumped the gun a bit on the IDE Drive support.

On the surface, it appears to be working -- the DI-30 gets detected without problems, after making the necessary changes to the config files I can get both flexbackup and taper to fire up and perform backups with no errors. With taper, I can also browse the tape directory and see all the files that were backed up. That's as far as it gets, unfortunately.

I am unable to restore from a flexbackup tape -- I keep getting Broken Pipe errors and using flexbackup in interactive mode I can only ever see the contents of /boot and not the rest.

Using taper, I can actually run a restore operation but the files that get put back are 0 byte files with the correct names but nothing else ??? Does anyone have an idea what could be going on here ? The taper_log files just says Creating device /home/e-smith/....../name of file for each of the files I am trying to restore

I would prefer to get taper going rather than flexbackup because it is by far an easier to use backup program than flexbackup especially from an end user perspective. If anyone has a clue what could have gone wrong, I would appreciate a pointer.

Kelvin

[Kelvin]

OK. I think I've worked it out.

Will test further before posting again with results (hopefully positive ones).

Kelvin

[Gerard Mokkenstorm]

Kevin,
in my search i found this howto for IDE onstream :

http://www.e-smith.nl/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=2

but when reading the first part 'compile a new kernel' i gave up.....
with my knowledge of linux, i would even dream of going there..(sorry)

So i thik i stick to the SCSI tapedrive. So i am still very curious about experiences from other sme users with the SCSI on-stream's before buying one.

Gerard

[Kelvin]

Hi Gerard,

I know about the kernel patch as well. However, I am not using the kernel patch method. OnStream's web site actually recommends using ide-scsi and osst instead which is the approach I am taking (and hey, no kernel compiling required !).

My tests have been so far so good. I will install the DI-30 into my production server for day to day backups and testing soon and that will tell if it works or not.

The reason I'm pursuing the IDE thing is because unlike the US, the price difference between the IDE and SCSI version here is substantial. That plus the cost of a SCSI controller make it a far more expensive option.

Kelvin

[Gordon]

Gerard

We have used SCSI Dat drives Sony SDT 9000 with a Tekram DC315U adapter card with success. It is not a bootable card but then a tape drive is not available till the OS has booted anyway. Let us know if you need a complied driver for SME 5.1.2

Gordon

[Darrell May]

Reposted from the devinfo forum:

I've just been evaluating the Onstream ADR2.60 IDE TBU drive.  The unit
ships complete with drive, tape cartridge and TapeWareXE 6.3.

My initial testing found the drive does not work with Flexbackup.  I
probably could fix this but did not invest any time in this.

The drive ships with TapeWareXE (which I have always liked) and works quite
well.  The only required step to take prior to following the TapeWare for
Linux installation instructions on SME is to create the following link:

# ln -s /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5.2 /usr/lib/libncurses.so.4

You may download an eval of TapeWare available in English, French, German,
Italian and Spanish here:

http://www.tapeware.com/download.asp

TapeWare includes a Linux gui interface that works on SME
(/usr/local/tapeware/twadmin) as well as a Windows program that permits you
to remotely control the SME server tape drive from any networked Windows
workstation.  Perfect for remote backup and restore jobs.

I've done some initial testing and have performed server backups and
selective restores.  All checked ok.  In fact the drive performed the
selective restore of two files (a typical admin task) in less then one
minute.

Has anyone else tried this tape drive on SME?  I'd be interested in hearing
any long term usage reports.

Regards,

--
Darrell May