Getting the Best Performance From ATAPI Travan Tape Drives

When using the ATAPI Travan mechanisms with Linux, it is best to disable the IDE-TAPE drive and use the IDE-SCSI emulation layer. With modern Linux kernels, this is accomplished by:

rmmod ide-tape
insmod scsi_mod
insmod ide-scsi
insmod st

or if you are using the OnStream DI30 or DI30Fast, replace the 'insmod st' with ' insmod osst'.

Now, instead of accessing the device using the /dev/ht0 or /dev/nht0 devices, you would use the /dev/st0 or /dev/nst0 devices (/dev/osst0 and /dev/nosst0 for the OnStream DI30).

Also, using an appropriate kernel is important for I/O success. We strongly recommend 2.2.19, 2.4.24, or 2.6.12 for best tape I/O performance.

In addition to the software side of the puzzle, Travan (and other QIC-based technologies) require retensioning of the actual media on a regular basis for best performance. Use the mt command to retension your media before every backup or restore attempt:

mt -f /dev/nst0 reten
 

This will keep the tape in top shape and provide the most reliable operation.