In a recent note, Terry Sambrooks said: > Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 15:17:11 +0100 > > At one time there was a definite problem with tape if the LRECL was less than > 18 > bytes, as the data was treated as noise errors. I did a transfer from an > remote > system and although the tape moved quite nicely, no data was accepted at the > re > ceiving end. At one time the restriction was cited in am IBM manual, although > I > cannot remember which one. The same restriction never applied to disk as > records > could be as small as a byte. > With the prologues and epilogues that modern tape drives apply to physical blocks, the problem should have vanished. But I suspect the restriction is enforced in software, so it may have outlasted its utility.
Using a large BLKSIZE does not solve the problem for small LRECL, since the last block of a data set may contain a single record. RECFM=VBS supports a null segment to pad the last block. Do access methods pad short blocks in this fashion? -- gil -- StorageTek INFORMATION made POWERFUL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
