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From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.)
Subject: Re: BSDI Compatible Tape drives
Nntp-Posting-Host: spcvxa.spc.edu
References: <31FF7C22.72A6@sloan.org> <Pine.BSI.3.94.960802085343.3663D-100000@picard.chickasaw.com>
Sender: news@spcuna.spc.edu (Network News)
Organization: St. Peter's College, US
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 1996 20:22:56 GMT
Message-ID: <1996Aug2.162256.1@spcvxb.spc.edu>
Lines: 34
In article <Pine.BSI.3.94.960802085343.3663D-100000@picard.chickasaw.com>, Shawn McMahon <smcmahon@chickasaw.com> writes:
> Our WangDAT refuses to work in SCSI-2 mode, and thus will only put half
> as much data on a tape as the format is capable of. Wangtek says "we
> dunno" when asked BSDI questions, and posts to the bsdi-users mailing
> list have elicited no reponse other than a slew of "if you find out how
> to fix this, email me 'cause ours does this to".
>
> It's performed reliably and well, it just only puts 2 gigs on my
> 90-meter tapes.
The SCSI conformance level (CCS, SCSI-1, SCSI-2) has nothing to do with
the drive's capacity, which is a function of whether it's DDS (2GB on 90M
tapes), DDS-DC (2 to 4GB on 90MB tapes), or DDS-2 (4 to 8GB on 120M tapes).
About the only problem you might have is that if the drive is jumpered to
do DDS instead of DDS-DC, you may not be able to select modes using the
various /dev/[n]rst[#] devices.
You should consult the manual you got with the drive and look for switch
or jumper settings to enable compression. If they don't describe any, but
the drive claims to be DDS-DC capable, then keep asking the drive vendor
until they provide the information you need to operate the drive.
If they tell you it requires a SCSI command to enable it, have them mail/
FAX you the page, and you can then use the "scsicmd" utility to send the
needed command.
By the way, a SCSI device that isn't SCSI-2 conformant is *reall* old -
did you buy this new from an authorized distributor, or used/"refurbished"
from some place like CSC?
Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing
terry@spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
+1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX)