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Tom Goldberg
March 7, 2017 at 2:37 pm in reply to: Cache-A Cleaning Light Won’t Turn Off

Darren,

You might have just had a bad cleaning pass and could run the cleaning tape again and see how the drive behaves.

Additionally/alternatively, if you don’t mind using a command line interface, you can run the HP tape tools that are shipped with the system to drill down and understand the health of the drive. You’ll need a blank tape and to log into the linux side of the Cache-A (if you don’t know how to log in, instructions can be found at https://www.tomgoldberg.net/Cache-A/CATechBrief-CommandLine.pdf).

Once logged in, the tools can be found under /opt/ltt/hp_ltt and are menu driven. They are a bit confusing, but can be figured out or you can find instructions for them on the HP site.

Good luck.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net
Tom Goldberg
January 14, 2017 at 4:03 pm in reply to: Catalog missing

Hi Jonathan,

The catalog backup you made from the Cache-A system tools was strictly intended for restoring a lost or fatally corrupted catalog back onto the Cache-A. I’m not sure where you are getting this “catalog rar” file, but I suspect that’s a Promax addition since the Cache-A days.

You will likely have better luck exporting your catalog using the tools Cache-A developed for that purpose that are most likely still extant on your system. Instructions for doing so may be found at https://www.tomgoldberg.net/Cache-A/CATechBrief-catalog-export.pdf

I hope that helps.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net
Tom Goldberg
November 19, 2016 at 5:04 am in reply to: cache a tape drive to windows 7 tape drive

As I already wrote “you installed the LTFS software and are expecting it to read tar tapes – that won’t work”

Tapes written with tar do not present as volumes – you have to un-tar them onto a volume. Please read the tar references I provided.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net
Tom Goldberg
November 18, 2016 at 4:08 pm in reply to: cache a tape drive to windows 7 tape drive

Sorry Enrique,

I can’t really understand quite what your issue is from your description, but my guess is that you installed the LTFS software and are expecting it to read tar tapes – that won’t work.

You need to use something that can read tar tapes – any linux system will do it – if your Cache-A UI isn’t working, the linux system behind it may still be and you can use a command line to access that per my posted doc at https://www.tomgoldberg.net/Cache-A/CATechBrief-CommandLine.pdf and the aforementioned doc on reading CA tar tapes. If the Cache-A is not an option, any linux system with an attached LTO drive would work the same way.

Many posters on this forum have solutions that will un-tar a tape on Macs (like Bru and YoYotta). I’m no expert on windows solutions but there is lot’s of advice on it on the web, such as https://wiki.haskell.org/How_to_unpack_a_tar_file_in_Windows. This author says that 7zip should work which you say you’ve tried – maybe between his instructions and our tech brief you can make that work.

I hope this helps, good luck.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net
Tom Goldberg
November 17, 2016 at 5:42 pm in reply to: cache a tape drive to windows 7 tape drive

As I have posted elsewhere in this forum, Cache-A tar tape format description and instructions for reading can be found at https://tomgoldberg.net/Cache-A/CATechBrief-ReadCAtar.pdf. You will need to use a tar tool that lets you specify the blocking factor as 300 as described in this paper.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net
Tom Goldberg
September 8, 2016 at 3:19 pm in reply to: Storing LTO Tapes On and Offsite

The LTO Consortium has established environmental limits for LTO tapes. Figures typically published by tape manufacturers are as follows:

Operating:

10 to 45°C (50 to 113°F) 10-80% RH

Storage:

16 to 35°C (61 to 95°F) 20-80% RH

Sony goes further and publishes requirements for Archive Storage Conditions:

16 to 25°C (60 to 77°F) 20-50% RH

In most climates, normal AC should suffice for this but where unusual humidities or temperature extremes exist you may need to do more.

Most smaller users have adhered to the former storage environmental conditions without problems. If you are archiving for the long term and won’t be accessing the data for long periods, and if the content is high-value, it would make sense to ensure the more narrow conditions.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net
Tom Goldberg
September 3, 2016 at 2:40 pm in reply to: How to read Cache tapes?

Tim,

Cache-A never wrote tapes in any proprietary format. Early Cache-A tapes were all written in TAR. With the advent of LTFS, users were given the option to format tapes either as TAR or LTFS on a tape-by-tape basis.

Cache-A TAR tapes did have an index for directory information – a full description of our TAR tapes can be found at https://tomgoldberg.net/Cache-A/CATechBrief-ReadCAtar.pdf

Cache-A LTFS tapes fully conform to that standard and can be read on any LTFS device.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net
Tom Goldberg
July 29, 2016 at 3:10 pm in reply to: Migrating away from Cache-a

Hi Eli,

While I can’t make any recommendations for the best solution going forward, your Cache-A does have a couple of built-in tools for exporting the tape library database. These tools allow you to select, format and export all your tapes and their contents into a csv file which is readable by Excel or many other programs.

I’ve posted the Cache-A tech brief describing how to use this at
https://tomgoldberg.net/Cache-A/CATechBrief-catalog-export.pdf

In order to use this, you will need to be able to log into the Cache-A’s command line – instructions can be found at
https://tomgoldberg.net/Cache-A/CATechBrief-CommandLine.pdf

Good luck,
Tom

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net
Tom Goldberg
July 19, 2016 at 2:42 pm in reply to: Not sure what to do with TAR tapes written with Cache-A. Now have BRU.

Thanks for the correction Neil – I should test these links before posting!

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net
Tom Goldberg
July 1, 2016 at 1:24 pm in reply to: Not sure what to do with TAR tapes written with Cache-A. Now have BRU.

I have posted a tech brief that details how Cache-A writes tar tapes and how to read them with any tar program here.

Basically, as usual, Tim has it right. Our blocking factor has always been 300. Our writing algorithms generally broke tar sessions into about 90GB depending upon actual file sizes. tar session files were always written in the order the list from the source file system was provided.

I hope that helps.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net

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