[Tom Goldberg]

Hi Whitney,

I’m not sure why these files weren’t going to tape as you sent them, but that is the root cause of your issue. You had apparently pushed more than 3 TB of data to our VTAPE but the Cache-A did not start actually archiving until you reinserted the tape, whereupon we did what we normally do with more data than what would fit on a tape – tape spanning. When tapes are spanned, they all form a single logical volume and thus are named with the naming convention you noted (i.e. first_tape_name, first_tape_name_2 and so on).

Unfortunately, CatDV does not at this time accommodate spanned sets, so although apparently all your data is safely on tape, CatDV doesn’t know which volume it landed on.

You can either keep this 3 tape spanned set as it is and use the Cache-A’s search function to restore content when you need it or, if you want CatDV to remain in charge, re-archive your stuff to individual tapes.

The CatDV Archive interface nicely reports how much space you’ve used on each tape as you go – in your case, it must have constantly been reporting 0% which should have been a good clue that something wasn’t quite right! If you start archiving to a new tape, note whether those items are actually getting written to tape – you can also easily tell from the Cache-A user interface by noting the Transfer Summary. If it still doesn’t seem to be happening properly, let us know and we’ll look into what might be causing your problem. Don’t forget that your Cache-A share is probably close to full from that last spanned set so you’ll need to be erasing data to make room for new archiving.

Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com

[Tom Goldberg]

Bob,

Your understanding is correct – a picture is as verbose as I can be:

At least this has worked for me with Snow Leopard in several instances. Maryann advises that it worked for her with Snow Leopard but not with Leopard (10.5). I haven’t tried it with Lion yet.

W’d like to hear what you learn when you try it.

Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com

[Tom Goldberg]

Bob,

Thank you as always for jumping in and helping provide explanations.

I thought I would post that we have discovered that, in fact you don’t need to have a router to get connected directly to a Cache-A (or any other network device) from a Mac.

When you enable Internet Sharing from the Mac’s System Preferences > Sharing panel, the Mac becomes a DHCP server itself. It doesn’t matter if you don’t even have an active Internet connection, just make sure that you are sharing some service on your Mac (i.e. Airport) with your Ethernet port.

Maryann has reported that this got her working and might be a useful trick for anyone to know.

Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com

[Tom Goldberg]

Hi Maryann,

Sorry that we didn’t return your call soon enough.

Please note that all of our release notes clearly state:
Issue: Direct attached HSF (Macintosh) volumes cannot reliably access data on volumes over 2TB in total capacity.
Workaround: Attach such large volumes to client workstations and use network sharing.

This is not just buried in the manual. The ‘reliably’ part comes from the fact that data on a larger volume may or may not be within the first 2TB data space – if it is, we can see it, if it isn’t we can’t. This is a limitation of Linux Open Source software, however, we are working to address it in an upcoming release.

I assure you that afp works but our case notes indicate that apparently you are trying to share afp without a router which in fact won’t work.

Regards,
Tom

Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com

[Tom Goldberg]

You are all set Lindsay – The drive will automatically detect when a cleaning cartridge is inserted and automatically run a cleaning cycle with it and then eject the cleaning tape when complete (this may take up to 5 minutes).

Thanks for checking the manual, I will assure this gets clarified in the next manual update.

Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com

[Tom Goldberg]

All LTO drive models can be cleaned with an LTO Universal Cleaning Tape. Do not attempt to use swabs or other manual cleaning methods. We use Fuji, but Sony, Maxell and TDK are all LTO approved manufacturers – LTO tapes with other branding are made by one of these companies.

Normally a cleaning is only required when the cleaning light on the drive starts to flash, normally after about every 50 tapes, but this can vary significantly depending upon tape batches, environment and drive specific factors.

In cases like yours, a preemptive cleaning certainly would be recommended before any other steps.

Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com

[Tom Goldberg]

Lindsay,

Not to preclude others users from weighing in here, I’d make a few comments:

[Tom Goldberg]

Jeff,

Just a note, not sure why the Cache-A would have hung at pending, but if that kind of thing happens, restarting is undesirable and slow – you are better off going to System Tools page > Utilities tab > Restart Tape Manager button – much quicker and safer.

Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com

[Tom Goldberg]

Right 2.1.15 is the latest and greatest. You can always check for the status of all our releases on our support page and just click on the SW update request button to get an update scheduled for your serial number.

Warranty or not, we’ve always provided software updates for free.

That said… a heads up, we are going to v3.0 soon and that will be a paid upgrade, pricing TBD. For 3.0 we’ll be moving to CentOS6.2 64 bit and it will be distributed on a flash drive. Keep an eye on our support page for this announcement and details.

Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com

[Tom Goldberg]

Nate,

I’m sorry that your expectations were not properly set for the interactions between our products. Not much I can do about that except to disclose all the facts to the best of my understanding here. As I’ve mentioned, I know Rolf is actively working on the restore issue.

As noted in our 2.0.22 release notes, once you format a tape as LTFS, you can’t change it back – this explains your “Space Lost” issue. As noted in our 2.1 release notes, this has been fixed, so once you get the update, you will be able to fix that tape – format it back to LTFS and then back to tar again to get all the space back.

We’ll need your serial number to schedule that software update for your machine – send me an email with that info or simply fill out the Software Update request form on our web site (https://cache-a.com/uprequest.php)

Tom Goldberg
Cache-A Corporation
602 Park Point Drive
Golden, CO 80401
mailto:tom.goldberg@cache-a.com
https://cache-a.com