IDE Sony SDX-460V AIT Tape Drive on FC6 how to

[cruzeta]

I found a lot of threads about tape drives, each one with a peace of information. Here it go step by step what worked for me.

1- This Sony IDE tape does not work with DMA !!!! :eek: ...we have do disable it.

At /etc/grub.conf let us add this:

title Fedora Core (2.6.19-1.2895.fc6)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.19-1.2895.fc6 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb ide=nodma quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.19-1.2895.fc6.img


2- Now we have to set the ide-scsi module to be loaded every time the system reboot.

At /etc/rc.d/rc.local let us add these lines:

#!/bin/sh
#
# This script will be executed *after* all the other init scripts.
# You can put your own initialization stuff in here if you don't
# want to do the full Sys V style init stuff.

touch /var/lock/subsys/local
# *** Added by Cruzeta in 2007/01/20 to make SDX-460V work ***
modprobe ide-scsi
# *** Added by Cruzeta in 2007/01/20 to make SDX-460V work ***

3- Reboot

we found the tape at /dev/tape (Fedora automatic created this link)


4- Testing

We used the Sony Tape Tools for Linux we’ve got from this Sony site:

http://sony.storagesupport.com/ait/tapeutility_linux.htm

Drive test:

# ./sonytape /dev/tape -t
SONY tape device detected.
SONY SDX-460V Revision: 0100
Getting nori drive trace.
This process can take a few minutes.
Nori drive trace length = 0x598db
Nori drive trace complete(see nori_trace.txt).
Done.


Read and Write Test:

# ./sonytape /dev/tape -w nori_trace.txt
SONY tape device detected.
SONY SDX-460V Revision: 0100
Checking tape drive write and read function.
Warning!! This process will write over data and takes several minutes.
Data compression disabled.
1,638 MBytes of incremented data was written in 392 seconds.
Write transfer rate = 4.18 MBytes/sec
1,638 MBytes of incremented data was read in 428 seconds.
Read transfer rate = 3.83 MBytes/sec
Data compression enabled.
1,638 MBytes of incremented data was written in 340 seconds.
Write transfer rate = 4.82 MBytes/sec
1,638 MBytes of incremented data was read in 335 seconds.
Read transfer rate = 4.89 MBytes/sec
Current RAW count: 0
Current ECC-3 count: 0
Current tape load count: 4
Write and read function check complete.
Done.


Read the "readme_sonytape_linux_v2.5.txt" within the package for more commands.

Now you can make your backcups direct into tape using the tar command:

# tar -czf /dev/st0 /home

I am trying to make BackuPC work... :confused:

Hope it can help.

Good Luck.

[cruzeta]

REV. 0.0.1

This was the post before revision 1.0.2.
we could make the tape work with these settings but it freezed the server when stated a write job.
It took me 2 weeks of searching... :eek:
It is here just to show what you will find around that does not work.

DON'T USE THIS !!!! IT DOES NOT WORK !!!

I found a lot of threads about tape drives, each one with a peace of information. Here it go step by step what worked for me.


1- First we have to know which device our tape is plugged in.

As root we use:

# desmeg
Or:
# desmeg | less

So we can see this near line 160:

Probing IDE interface ide0...
hdb: SONY SDX-460V, ATAPI TAPE drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
Probing IDE interface ide1...
hdc: Maxtor 6Y080L0, ATA DISK drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hdc: max request size: 128KiB
hdc: 160086528 sectors (81964 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(33)
hdc: cache flushes supported
hdc: hdc1

Now we know the drive is at hdb.

2- this device must be set as a SCSI device to work so we have to tell it to Fedora:

At /etc/grub.conf let us add these lines:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
# *** Added by Cruzeta in 2007/01/20 to make SDX-460V work ***
hdb=ide-scsi
# *** Added by Cruzeta in 2007/01/20 to make SDX-460V work ***
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz


3- Now we have to set the ide-scsi module.

At /etc/rc.d/rc.local let us add these lines:

#!/bin/sh
#
# This script will be executed *after* all the other init scripts.
# You can put your own initialization stuff in here if you don't
# want to do the full Sys V style init stuff.

touch /var/lock/subsys/local
# *** Added by Cruzeta in 2007/01/20 to make SDX-460V work ***
modprobe ide-scsi
# *** Added by Cruzeta in 2007/01/20 to make SDX-460V work ***

4- Reboot

we found the tape at /dev/st0

If you are not sure the tape is at this path unload the ide-scsi module and load it again with these commands:

# modprobe -r ide-scsi (it will remove the ide-scsi module)
# modprobe ide-scsi (it will load the ide-scsi module)
# tail /var/log/messages (it will show the last log messages lines)

We see there something like:

st0: SONY SDX-460V …

5- Testing, we used the Sony Tape Tools for Linux we’ve got from this Sony site:

http://sony.storagesupport.com/ait/tapeutility_linux.htm

# ./sonytape /dev/st0 –t

Read the "readme_sonytape_linux_v2.5.txt" within the package for more commands.

Now you can make your backcups direct into tape using the tar command:

# tar -czf /dev/st0 /home

Hope it can help.

Good Luck.