HP C5683A Surestore DAT40, backup to DDS-2 works, DDS-4 gives I/O error

[evdsanden]

Hi,

I'm trying, using a HP C5683A Surestore DAT40 to create backups on new media of type DDS-4 using commandline utility mt and tar. When I try to tar to the drive it fail with and write fail, I/O error. When I try to erase the tape it shows me a fatal error. When I perform both steps on a DDS-2 tape all is OK. I also ran the ltt utility on the drive, this shows a similar issue, DDS-2 succeeds, DDS-4 fails.

Do I need to write settings to the drive or add options to the utilities to be able to use DDS-4 tapes?

My configuration is an Adaptec 2940U2W controller connected to the HP C5683A Surestore DAT40 on a CentOS 5.3 linux system.

[Fabio Ettore]

Hi,

it seems to me an HW issue of DDS-4, no operating system problem. Have you checked that aspect?

Best regards,
Fabio

[evdsanden]

I ran a test from the bacula suite named btape, which runs successfully on the DDS-2 tape, but fails on the DDS-4. I also tried to run ltt, which showed a write failure only on the DDS-4 tape. I just read somewhere about the difference in thickness of tape for DDS-2 and DDS-4. Figuring that, I think I could have troubles taped feeding as a results of a dirty drive, although I used a cleaning tape on a regular basis.

[Hakki Aydin Ucar]

Hi,

Apparently you have a bottleneck with Media and System:

Is it first time to backup with DDS-4 ?
if so,
-check and be sure somehow your SCSI bus supports it ?
-And besides, maybe problem is media DDS-4 Tape itself ? did you change and try with new one ?

[evdsanden]

@Hakki

I use an adaptec 2940U2W scsi adapter which supports 2 scsi 68pin connections, on is for ultra2 and the other is wide ultra. The drive is connected to the wide ultra interface, which is, I believe the interface that is used by the drive and I use a cable that is terminated at the drives end. The system, by the way, is a P4 2.4GHz PC with 2GB memory. I figured that if backups succeed on DDS-2, DDS-4 should work too ?

PS. This is the first time I'm running a backup using DDS-4 tapes. I tried several all new ones. My old DDS-2 tapes, run flawlessly.

[Hakki Aydin Ucar]

I used to play with Centos it is free of charge Enterprise Linux, and it was compatible most HW as far as remember.
I checked internet , I do not remember where I met this article but:
->>
since mixing fast Ultra2 SCSI devices with slower Ultra SCSI ones would cause problems, usually resulting in all bus traffic running at the speed of the slowest device.
->>
did you try backup with ultra wide scsi connected to DAT40 while all scsi slots empty
to get rid of above problem ?
And did you try another brand of DDS-4 media?

[evdsanden]

The tapedrive is the only device connected on the scsi bus and I have to different brands of tapes, both fail. Yesterday I connected another DDS-4 capable tapedrive (DELL), this tapedrive gives me the same result, I can backup to DDS-2 but not DDS-4. I checked specs of both drives, both are capable of handling DDS-4, I cannot understand the issues I got with these drives?

[evdsanden]

Additional I notice that the errors always appear at the same block, regardless which DDS4 tape I load. It looks to me as if the drive can not handle DDS4 tapes due to a configuration issue? I figure that if I have scsi interface problems the errors should be more random.

[Marino Meloni_1 · Accepted solution]

You wrote LTT reported a write error during the test.
Can you run again the test and after the failure, with still the tape inside the drive, collect a support ticket and attach it here?

[evdsanden]

Hi Marino,

Here's the report I get from the hp_ltt utility program. I did perform a clean drive 5 times in a row as inidcated without any success, it still reports that I need to clean the drive ? I cannot figure why it won't use my DDS-4 type tapes. I have tried both Sony and Imation tapes new and old.