[comp.periphs] Exabyte vs. Ultrix 3.1

shaddock@rti.UUCP (Mike Shaddock) (07/07/89)

We have a DILOG SQ703A tape controller with an Exabyte 8mm tape drive
(prom 4$22) attached to VAXstation II running Ultrix 3.1.  Under Ultrix
2.2, the Exabyte worked perfectly, but since we upgraded to Ultrix 3.x
it has not worked very well.  It understands commands like "mt -f
/dev/rmt1h rewind" or "mt -f /dev/rmt1h offline", but dd, tar, and dump
all fail in a moderately strange way.  Tar will begin to write on the
tape, but then will come back with:

	/dev/rmt1h: Error 0
	tar: Archive 1 write error

Dd and dump also report "Error 0" and complain about write errors.  Our
current kernel config file has

 adapter        uba0      at  nexus ?   
 controller     klesiu0   at  uba0      
 controller     uq1       at  klesiu0   csr 0174500   vector uqintr  
 tape           tms0      at  uq1       drive 0
 controller     klesiu1   at  uba0      
 controller     uq2       at  klesiu1   csr 0160404   vector uqintr  
 tape           tms1      at  uq2       drive 0
 controller     uda0      at  uba0      
 controller     uq0       at  uda0      csr 0172150   vector uqintr  
 disk           ra0       at  uq0       drive 0
 disk           ra1       at  uq0       drive 1
 disk           ra2       at  uq0       drive 2
 device         qv0       at  uba0      csr 0177200   flags 0x0f   vector qvkint  qvvint  
 device         qe0       at  uba0      csr 0174440   vector qeintr  
 device         dz0       at  uba0      csr 0160100   flags 0xff   vector dzrint  dzxint  

in the relevant devices section.

Has anyone else out there seen this problem, and if so, do you have a
fix?
-- 
Mike Shaddock	{decvax,seismo,ihnp4,philabs}!mcnc!rti!shaddock
		shaddock@rti.rti.org

"You're in a twisty maze of sendmail rules, all obscure."

don@edison.UUCP (Don Kossman) (07/08/89)

In article <3064@rti.UUCP> shaddock@rti.UUCP (Mike Shaddock) writes:
>We have a DILOG SQ703A tape controller with an Exabyte 8mm tape drive
>(prom 4$22) attached to VAXstation II running Ultrix 3.1.  Under Ultrix
>2.2, the Exabyte worked perfectly, but since we upgraded to Ultrix 3.x
>it has not worked very well.  It understands commands like "mt -f
>/dev/rmt1h rewind" or "mt -f /dev/rmt1h offline", but dd, tar, and dump
>all fail in a moderately strange way.  Tar will begin to write on the
>tape, but then will come back with:
>
> (error messages and config file deleted)
>
we've been using an exabyte 8mm drive with a controller from
Contemporary Cybernetics (model Cy-8200-Q) on a MicroVAX-II
under Ultrix 3.0 for several months.

we did have some initial write errors with dump, reported these
to the vendor, got a controller upgrade, and have had no problems
since then.   dump/restore work perfectly.  we are getting
about 10 megabytes per minute on our poor old MVII.  combinations of
tar and mt work reasonably well (have to use "mt fsf 1" when writing
multiple tar archives to the non-rewind device, and sometimes the tape
positioning gets messed up as the tape is unloaded/loaded).  this
is to be expected, perhaps (?) with 8mm technology.  we're
waiting for DAT, which will give us slightly lower speed but
true random access (ie "tar r" should be possible).

don kossman, sei information technology, los angeles
...sun!suntzu!seila!don