Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3785 mails)

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Re: [SLE] Tape Drives and compression
  • From: Greg Freemyer <freemyer-ml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: 03 Oct 2003 17:17:11 -0400
  • Message-id: <1065215830.6074.14.camel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
As an FYI, I got my tape running with compression, but using pure tar as
my backup program I could not get it to stream (requires 15-30 MB/sec
depending on data compressibility).

SuSE 8.2 includes "buffer" to work with tar and with the combination I
could get it to stream, but I lost the ability to write more than one
tapes worth of backup.

I found "mbuffer" or "Measuring Buffer" on the web and I
downloaded/compiled/installed it.

It is basically a replacement for buffer, but with better functionality
from what I saw.

Using "tar | mbuffer -o /dev/tape" (with appropriate args) I now have
both a streaming tape drive and the ability to have my backup span
multiple tapes.

Another nice thing about mbuffer is it prints i/o speed and progress
statistics throughout the backup process.

Greg
--
Greg Freemyer




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