Tape full after about half of NATIVE capacity

[ThomasBahn]

Problem: 

I get a "tape is full" message after writing about half of the native capacity of the tape.

It's an LTO4 drive, using LTO4 tapes (800 GB native, 1,6TB compressed).

Tried already:

Tried 4 different tapes.

Used cleaning tape.

Erased tape (mt ... erase)

Tested using 1 GB files (1073741824 bytes each) filled with random data created by: 
for((i=1000; i<1010; i++)); do echo "${i:1}"; dd if=/dev/urandom of=${i:1}.bin bs=1M count=1; done
and written to tape using tar:
tar cvf /dev/nst0 *.bin

tar stops everytime while writing 387.bin, thus something between 386 GB and 387 GB has been written at this point.

Message:
tar: /dev/nst0: Funktion write fehlgeschlagen: Auf dem Gerät ist kein Speicherplatz mehr verfügbar
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

Tranlation (not the original English error message):
tar: /dev/nst0: function write failed: There is no more space avaialbe on the device
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

Cannot install HP LTT, since not supported for Debian based distributions (at least not in the current versions, which are downloadable)
Tried to install it using alien (to convert rpm to deb), but failed so far.

Environment:

HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 V2 Server 
Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)

HP StorageWorks Ultrium 1760 SAS (external drive)
Model: EH920A, HW REV: J008

Connected through Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array P212

More details:

# mt -f /dev/nst0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=3, block number=0, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x46 (LTO-4).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (81010000):
EOF ONLINE IM_REP_EN

# tapeinfo -f /dev/nst0
Product Type: Tape Drive
Vendor ID: 'HP '
Product ID: 'Ultrium 4-SCSI '
Revision: 'U64D'
Attached Changer API: No
SerialNumber: 'info erased'
MinBlock: 1
MaxBlock: 16777215
SCSI ID: 1
SCSI LUN: 0
Ready: yes
BufferedMode: yes
Medium Type: Not Loaded
Density Code: 0x46
BlockSize: 0
DataCompEnabled: yes
DataCompCapable: yes
DataDeCompEnabled: yes
CompType: 0x1
DeCompType: 0x1
Block Position: 40631185
Partition 0 Remaining Kbytes: 800226
Partition 0 Size in Kbytes: 800226
ActivePartition: 0
EarlyWarningSize: 0
NumPartitions: 0
MaxPartitions: 0

# lspci -knn
...
07:00.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array G6 controllers [103c:323a] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Smart Array P212 [103c:3241]
Kernel driver in use: hpsa
Kernel modules: hpsa
...

# lsscsi
[0:0:0:0] storage HP P420i 8.00 -
[0:1:0:0] disk HP LOGICAL VOLUME 8.00 /dev/sda
[1:0:0:0] storage HP P212 6.64 -
[1:0:1:0] tape HP Ultrium 4-SCSI U64D /dev/st0

[ThomasBahn]

Completely new, original HP tape - same result.

[Rajat Bhargava]

Hello Thomas,

Two possibilities here...

1. The drive itself is bad and may need replacement.

2. The OS is not compatible or tested with drives. 

To know whether the drive is good or not you can move this drive and HBA to a different server (Windows) and test for backups. If the backups fail there we know that the drive may need replacement.

For the OS compatibility issue, Only SLES and RHEL are on the supported matrix, so it could be the OS also. If you can get Windows 2008R2 or 2012R2 installed then I believe this setup should work.