[CentOS] Problems with LTO-3 and U320 on Centos 4.4

Tue Nov 7 15:19:34 UTC 2006
Plant, Dean <dean.plant at roke.co.uk>

Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Nov 2006 at 12:39pm, Plant, Dean wrote
> 
>> I am currently testing an Overland Tape storage unit with a LTO-3
>> drive on CentOS 4.4. After a random amount of time but usually when
>> we have backed up about 0.5-1TB we get scsi errors which cause the
>> backup to fail. I have rebuilt the box with Solaris 10 x86 and
>> Windoze to prove the hardware and have successfully backed up over
>> 3TB on each OS without error. 
>> 
>> Can anyone offer advice on how to find out what is causing the error
>> in CentOS.
> 
> Your best bet to track down exactly what those errors mean would be to
> head over to the linux-scsi list.  But I can tell you that I've been
> using an Overland LTO3 library on centos-4 for over a year now with
> very good results.  The 2 main differences are that I'm using an
> x86_64 server (I doubt that makes much difference) and an LSI 21320
> HBA.  I have had nothing but good luck with LSI adapters, and I think
> it'd be worth it for you to give one a shot.
> 
> I will say this, though.  If you plan on ever using 2 drives in the
> library, get the 22320, which has 2 external channels.  I've been
> tearing my hair out trying to get both drives in my library to write
> at full speed at the same time, and no matter what driver tweaks I
> make, I just can't get it to go.  My 22320 arrives today, and I'm
> rather hoping that'll fix the problem.

Thanks for your reply,

I think ill try the LSI adapter, as your setup seems very similar. Just
out of curiosity what sort of backup speeds do you get to a single LTO3
drive?. I seem to struggle to get anything above 60-70MB/s.

Dean.