Command to get tape capacity status?

Fred Erickson frederickson at iname.com
Sun Apr 13 19:34:48 UTC 2008


On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 08:42 -0400, Scott R. Ehrlich wrote:
> Hello to all:
> 
> I have an Overland tape library connected, via SCSI card, to an out-of-box, 
> full install of CentOS 5 install on an old PC.
> 
> I have a script that uses tar to archive data to tape and mtx to change tapes. 
> What I don't know, if possible, is to obtain the status of how much tape is 
> left in the drive.   If I get a write failure, I'd like to know if the tape is 
> bad or has run out of space.
> 
> I know of bacula, amanda, and other backup methods, but I prefer to use the 
> simplest options possible, mainly because if a hard drive failure occurs, which 
> has happened at the last minute, I can take the original CentOS 5 media from 
> CD, install it, and get back up and running in no time.
> 
> So, any way to inquire remaining tape status and [estimated] capacity?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Scott

I am answering your message only because no one else has. My knowledge
of Overland tape systems is very limited - I have only worked on some of
the Neo series hardware on M$ servers - never had to use them on a day
to day basis.

Seems to me that if you are concerned with an individual tape, the
system isn't working properly. It should mark a defective tape as bad
and move on to the next tape in the library. This is a link to one of
Overlands IBM AIX pages - don't know if you have seen it or if anything
there may help you.

http://support.overlandstorage.com/jive/entry.jspa?externalID=6336&categoryID=407

I believe Overland has decent support, although at what cost I don't
know.

Good luck.




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