Hi,
I am trying to configure a Qualstar TLS-8466 autochanger, which has two IBM
LTO-5 drives installed. The changer itself is connected to a SCSI HBA
(Adaptec) but the drives are connected separately to another SAS HBA (LSI).
The server runs Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS and bacula version 7.0.5 was installed from
Ubuntu repository.
Both tape drives and the autochanger devices are recognized correctly and
would pass various basic tests (e.g. mtx status, mt status, tapeinfo, etc).
Here is the system's SCSI devices list:
# lsscsi -g
[2:0:0:0] disk LSI 9750-16i4e DISK 5.12 /dev/sda /dev/sg0
[2:0:1:0] disk LSI 9750-16i4e DISK 5.12 /dev/sdb /dev/sg1
[7:0:0:0] mediumx QUALSTAR TLS-8466 227d /dev/sch0 /dev/sg4
[8:0:0:0] tape IBM ULTRIUM-HH5 BBNF /dev/st0 /dev/sg2
[8:0:1:0] tape IBM ULTRIUM-HH5 BBNF /dev/st1 /dev/sg3
But I am still confused about few bits of configuration not very well
explained in the documentation. I have used LTO-4 Device section from the
distribution bacula-sd.conf file as a template. Here is my questions:
a) I have added ChangerDevice directive to the Device resources for the
drives, pointing to their corresponding raw SCSI devices (/dev/sg2, /dev/
sga3), while Autochager has ChangerDevice configured as /dev/sg4. Is this
configuration correct? I am assuming these tape raw devices only used for the
purpose of running AlertCommand on the drives?
b) What is the effect of MaximumFileSize option and what would be its optimal
value for my IBM LTO-5 SAS drives? I have used 8GB value found in one of the
list posts, while the documentation suggests 2GB for LTO-4. But even set at
8GB this would create lots of EOF marks on a 1.5TB tape, do we really need so
many?
c) Should I try increasing the tape block size? Set it to fixed? I know this
topic has been rather controversial, so any recent experience from similar
drives/system would be appreciated. I plan to use spooling to a dedicated RAID
volume, so hopefully hard drives should not be a bottleneck.
Listed below is the devices configuration from my bacula-sd.conf:
Autochanger {
Name = TLS
Device = Drive-1, Drive-2
Changer Command = "/etc/bacula/scripts/mtx-changer %c %o %S %a %d"
Changer Device = /dev/sg4
}
Device {
Name = Drive-1 # IBM ULTRIUM-HH5 on /dev/sg2
Drive Index = 0
Media Type = LTO-5
Archive Device = /dev/nst0
AutomaticMount = yes; # when device opened, read it
AlwaysOpen = yes;
RemovableMedia = yes;
RandomAccess = no;
Maximum File Size = 8GB
AutoChanger = yes
Changer Device = /dev/sg2
#
# Enable the Alert command only if you have the mtx package loaded
# Note, apparently on some systems, tapeinfo resets the SCSI controller
# thus if you turn this on, make sure it does not reset your SCSI
# controller. I have never had any problems, and smartctl does
# not seem to cause such problems.
#
# Alert Command = "sh -c 'tapeinfo -f %c |grep TapeAlert|cat'"
# If you have smartctl, enable this, it has more info than tapeinfo
Alert Command = "sh -c 'smartctl -H -l error %c'"
}
Device {
Name = Drive-2 # IBM ULTRIUM-HH5 on /dev/sg3
Drive Index = 1
Media Type = LTO-5
Archive Device = /dev/nst1
AutomaticMount = yes; # when device opened, read it
AlwaysOpen = yes;
RemovableMedia = yes;
RandomAccess = no;
Maximum File Size = 8GB
AutoChanger = yes
Changer Device = /dev/sg3
# Enable the Alert command only if you have the mtx package loaded
# Alert Command = "sh -c 'tapeinfo -f %c |grep TapeAlert|cat'"
# If you have smartctl, enable this, it has more info than tapeinfo
Alert Command = "sh -c 'smartctl -H -l error %c'"
}
Thanks,
Ivan
--
Ivan Adzhubey, Ph.D.
Instructor
Division of Genetics, Dept of Medicine
Brigham & Women's Hospital
Harvard Medical School
New Research Building, Room 0464C
77 Avenue Louis Pasteur
Boston, MA 02115
tel.: (617) 525-4728
fax: (617) 525-4705
web: http://genetics.bwh.harvard.edu/wiki/sunyaevlab/
The information in this e-mail is intended only for the person to whom it is
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