The AMANDA filemarks setting covers the amount of space that ending one tar or dump and starting the next takes. Some tape drives don't take much space for a filemark, some take lots.
AMANDA uses this number as part of estimating how much tape is needed and when it should bump backups down levels. If you don't have a high enough filemark setting, you could get unexplained random EOT errors. If you have it set too high, planner will bump backups to higher levels than needed. I would leave it set to whatever tapetype likes, but changing it isn't immediately fatal either, if you have some room to spare on your tapes. > -----Original Message----- > From: Paul Yeatman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 1:02 AM > To: Amanda user's group > Subject: filemarkers > > > Hi, > > Now that I've added a DDS4 tape drive to my backup arsenal and will be > using DDS4 tapes, I'm requestioning the "filemark" parameter > in tapetypes. > The DDS3 drive I've used all this time has had a tapetype > with a filemark > of 0. I believe this is what the 'tapetype' test produced and, when I > checked with other tapetypes and possibly people on the list > that such a > value wasn't ludicrous, I went with it...and I've experienced > no problems > because of it. But, looking over the tapetypes in general again, > this value is usual non-zero which is making me requestion my > decision. > Why do so many people use a non-zero filemark value (one tapetype I > saw for a DLT used one over a meg)? What's the point? If 0 > works fine > (is this only true for me?), why ever use anything else? I'm missing > the point of any advantage it serves. > > Just curious if anyone had any input or a good answer for this. > > A quick search for "filemark" in the archives was futile as I mostly > conjured up nothing but tapetype listings instead of > discussion on the matter. > > -- > Paul Yeatman (858) 534-9896 [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
