>Maybe you should take your time to read the manpage for "mt". >Also, check the "blocksize" configuration for your tape drive. > >I'm not talking about cpio -C or dump -b or tar -b. I'm talking >about "mt setblk" and "blocksize" for stinit. > > > > I'm quite familiar with mt's man page. I use 'setblk 0' for my clients' backups... but for compatibility reasons, not for performance ones. (Most OSes know about variable block size, BTW. Even SCO Open Server.) I see no reason to turn Bowie's simple question into a "this is really complicated" answer when it's not. -Steve