Hi,

I have a trouble in taking backups in to tape, I'm able to take backup of my cvs repository which is 346MB in size using tar -cvf /dev/nst0 /cvsroot1. But when i try to take a backup of another cvs repository which is 25GB in size using tar -cvf /dev/nst0 /cvsroot, it starts the backup operation and while writing data to tape the tape drive makes some weird noise. At aome point in between it stops writing the data to tape giving error

tar:input/output error
cannot write to tape

Can any one help me to fix this.

Is there any limitation of size while taking backup using tar command?

Even i used dump command to take the backup, but it takes so much time to write 9% data to tape and after it gave the error

DUMP: 9.16% done at 39 kB/s, finished in 114:59
DUMP: write error 1664820 blocks into volume 1: Input/output error

what could be the problem here? i've googled a lot for this and was helpless.

Seems like a pretty straightforward tape drive error. A small backup may get through alright, but when you start pushing a lot more data, you are more likely to run into the problem. The noise is probably the tape drive stopping and going backward and forward trying to write data that failed. What kind of tape drive?

Try running a cleaning tape and then doing the backup to a new tape. You aren't running into a tar limit, but depending on your tape drive, you could hit a limit on tape size. The error then would be simply end of tape reached.

Thanks for you reply!!

It's a dell DAT72 36/72 GB internal tape drive. I've tried doing that,ran the cleaning tape as many times as possible, But when ever i try to take backup of huge data the cleaning led starts blinking again.

How can this be fixed?Please suggest me how can i proceed further?

As many times as possible is probably not the way to go. Cleaning tapes have a maximum number of uses and over use of them also adds wear to the drive. If the cleaning light is on solid, that means cleaning recommended, and occurs after 50 hours of actual tape usage. If the cleaning light is blinking slow (on 2 seconds off 1), it means cleaning required, and typically resulted from repeated errors in writing the tape (which could also be a bad tape). If you use a cleaning tape and the light is still blinking, then the cleaning tape was expired. If it is blinking fast (1/8 second on and off), then the cleaning tape is expired.

If you can't clear this up by using a new cleaning tape and then a new tape to dump your data to, and a repeated process of using different new tapes for your dump does not work, then you may have a hardware failure. How old is your drive?

I found a couple of links that might be helpful.

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...a_Handbook.pdf

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...DSK_100T_DAT72

Also, if you google "dell dat72 diagnostics", a couple of links come up that are Dell Support and have diagnostic software you can download and test your drive with. Poke around a bit and make sure you are getting the right thing for your system and drive.

I'm presuming you don't have access to warranty or contract support. But you could try looking up on their support site and finding out whether they might talk to you and recommend a course of action if the steps I've recommended above don't help.

I've had a number of DAT drives and had to replace at least a few of them after several years of use.