BRU PE to LTO workflow, share your methods?

[Tim Jones]

That explains a lot.

First, the Areca HBAs / drivers don’t properly support tape. I’ve totally surprised that you’ve had any success at this point. The only pSCSI HBA that we had success with back in the day were the ATTO UL4 and UL5 cards.

Next, run a cleaning cartridge in the drive.

Finally, go to the HP website and search for “L&TT for Mac OS X”.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Rumen Mitov]

Hello Tim, I’m sorry that I caused your headache.

I use this device /HP StoreEver LTO-4 Ultrium 1760 SAS External Tape Drive/ since I had no problems, except that with the reduced size of recorded information. I Would keep your recommendations and give feedback.

Unfortunately I can not find in any way that software HP’s Library and Tape Tools. Please if anyone has this software, send me to mail / rmitovv@gmail.com/ .

So far, there is no way to change the SAS controller. I did not understand whether the problem is with the controller or with areca driver and how this can affect the amount of recorded information?

[Tim Jones]

Hi Rumen,

No apologies required :).

The link to the L&TT can be found by going to https://www.hp.com and searching for “L&TT for OS X”.

The Areca issue is a combination of both their chipset and the OS X driver because the chipset is not configured to handle large, contiguous block reads and writes that occur when using tape. When you transfer data to a disk, the data blocks are broken up into what are called scatter-gather segment – each segment usually the size of a disk block or small multiple of the disk block – and written through the filesystem’s IO manager. Tape, on the other hand, requires large contiguous blocks for proper I/O operations (we actually recommend 1024k for LTO-4). The fact that you’ve been successful using tape with the Areca HBA to this point is a serious stroke of luck.

To explain how BRU works with the tape for determining capacity – a tape drive always knows where it is while writing to a tape. As we get close to the end of the tape, the drive sends us an “Early Warning – End of Tape” (EWEOT) status. We don’t control that, but once we receive that status, we write the current block and then write the end of volume marker to tell the BRU restore process that there is another tape and then continue to the next tape. This is why I indicated that I suspect a drive issue in causing your short writes – the drive decides when it’s written all that it can write, not BRU.

The L&TT diagnostic tool from HP is how we can determine what’s going on with the drive.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Rumen Mitov]

I coudn’t find the software. The expert from HP told me that I need SID servise ID. So this software is not free.
This is the final link where they stop me:
https://www8.hp.com/us/en/software-solutions/free-enterprise-software-downloads/index.html

1. So never mine if the main problem is ARECA controller I will change. Can you tell me one model?
2. In my device BRU I/O bufer size is set to 128K – ntape0 and ntape1. Is that OK or is too large. My be that is the problem. Can I change to 32K or 64K.
The most strange thing is that before year and a half on the same tapes capacity was near 800GB – 730GB.

[Tim Jones]

We recommend the HighPoint Technologies RocketRAID 2722 if you’re just using the tape, or the HighPoint RocketRAID 4522 or the ATTO Technologies R680 if you’re using hardware RAID on disk with the same card.

As to the buffer size, 128K is pushing the limits of the Areca and 64K is better, but you will notice a reduction in performance on the drives (80MB/sec down to around 65MB/sec). I don’t believe that this will resolve the capacity issue since you’ve had success to this point.

Since you’ve previously gotten the full rated capacity with your tapes, I’m again brought to an actual issue with the tape drive itself. You really should run a cleaning cartridge and also run the diagnostic test with the L&TT tool.

We have an article in our knowledgebase on how to run the diagnostics and pull the support ticket for the HP team is an issue is reported.

Here are the steps to run a drive assessment test with the “hp_ltt” tool.

https://support.bru.com/howto/ltt_drive_assessment_test.php

Here are the steps to perform the drive support ticket extraction:

https://support.bru.com/howto/ltt_ticket_extraction.php

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Rumen Mitov]

Thank you Tim! That is lot of information so need time. Best for now!

[Rumen Mitov]

Hello Tim. Since buying the ATO controller is costly. I would like to have every confidence that this change was not due to the version of the BRU.
I think we started with version 2 and then switched to 3. Could this be the reason.

I bought a cleaning cartridge. Is there anything in particular in the process of cleaning. Is there a tool in BRU about it.

I did check the archives from 2013 and there everything was fine. I let the cleaning cartridge and did test recording without compression software and change the buffer. Nothing.

I am still not able to download diagnostic software L&TT and turn to the supplier to clarify the case. While not released diagnostics I don’t take steps to buying a new controller.
Best!

[Tim Jones]

You could also use the HighPoint Rocket RAID 2722 unit. It’s much less expensive than the ATTO, is usually more available in the international market, and works wonderfully for tape.

Since the BRU engine itself didn’t change (the part of the product that performs the actual tape I/O), I really believe that you’re looking at a drive issue.

You still couldn’t find the L&TT package on HP’s site using that search term I listed above?

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Paul Katzman]

Hey all, been a lurker for a while and this is my first post here! Been having some similar issues to the OP with tape capacity (going to reach out to TG support, Tim.)

The HP website seems to be very wonky lately, maybe relating to their Consumer/Enterprise split; one link I found is hp.com/therestoftheurl and another is hpe.com/therestoftheurl. Anyway, hope this helps? https://www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=406731&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=4159“>https://h20564.https://www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=406731&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=4159

[Tim Jones]

Paul, that link is invalid. What were you specifically searching for on their site?

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!