Rodrigo Barbosa wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 05:38:30PM -0500, Steve wrote: > > >>>>But I would be *very* interested to know how you could calculate the >>>>total throughput of a random drive if you *did* know the fixed block size. >>>> >>>> >>>Knowing the blocksize used, I would just tell him to use "mt setblk" >>>to the same block size, then use "dump" to dump a random ammount >>>of that to the tape. Dump will provide you with the throughtput rate >>>you want. >>> >>>If you don't know the blocksize, or if you are using variable (0), >>>you really can't measure it outside the specific application you >>>are using to write the data to the tape. >>> >>> >>> >>Seems like it would be easier to just run it through something like >>buffer, mbuffer, or dbuffer and have one of those report the value >>second by second, in kilobytes per second. >> >> > >Should work too, but is it possible to do with the application he is >using ? > >Actually, what IS the application he is using ? > > > Good question. Let's assume that he is using "BackMeUpNow Proprietary Editition(tm)" newly ported from Win32 and running under Winelib. Another strategy, then, might be to do something like: # Clear the cache dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/null bs=1M count=2048 # Run the backup utility ./BackMeUpNowProForLinux And then monitor it with: vmstat 60 What gets written to tape has to be read from disk first, right? -Steve