Query: HPE StoreEver LTO8 Ultrium 30750 with Oracle Linux 8.5 or Rocky Linux 8.5

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We use a HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Server with a HPE Smart Array E208e-p SR Controller and try to write Backups to a HPE StoreEver LTO8 Ultrium 30750 Tape Drive. The Tape Drive uses firmware version N4Q1.

We would like to use the tape drive with Rocky Linux 8.5 or Oracle Linux 8.5. Unfortunetly we cannot write to any tape. «lsscsi» shows the tape drive and we can erase it with «mt -f /dev/st0 erase 0» or show tape info with «tapeinfo -f /dev/sg2» but as soon as we try to write something on tape as example «tar -b 2000 -czf /dev/nst0 /mnt/backup» it ends with «Input/output error».

Most commands to the tape drive are very slow. In dmesg I saw it uses smartpqi, so I installed the new smartpqi driver v2.1.16-030. It does not change anything.

The only application successfully writes to the tape drive is the HPE Library and Tape Tool (L&TT).

- Test 'Read/Write Test' started on device 'HPE Ultrium 8-SCSI' at address '210.0.0[33-/dev/sg2]'
- Operations Log
- Read Write Test Options
- Allow Overwrite : True
- Read and compare after the write operation : True
- Retry on read failure : off
- Data Limit Type : size
- Amount of data written/read in each phase (GB). : 4
- Time allowed for each data test phase (mins). : 5
- Block size for read/write (KB). : 64
- Max data transfer limit per command (KB). : 64
- Block Transfer Type : fixed
- Compression Ratio : 2 to 1
- Write filemarks after every : No Filemarks
- Performing 1st write phase of read/write test
- Total amount of data written : 4 GB
- Performing 1st read phase of read/write test
- Total amount of data read : 4 GB
- Test Passed.
- Analysis Results
- Read/Write Test version: V17.12.2019

Is there a chance to write data with tar to the tape drive?

[support_s]

System recommended content:

1. HPE StoreEver LTO-8 Ultrium 30750 Tape Drives - Standard Models

2. HPE StoreEver LTO-8 Ultrium 30750 Tape Drives - Spare parts

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[backslash · Accepted solution]

The solution was installing kmod-smartpqi from HPE ProLiant Gen10 and Gen10Plus Smart Array Controller (64-bit) Driver for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (64-bit). I updated also the firmware of the drive to Version P381. As Software we use now HPE StoreOpen (LTFS).