Writing small files to tape

[Daniel Baldoni]

Recently, I've come across an annoying problem while trying to write some
small files to our tape drive.  We suspect it's a problem with the SCSI
tape device driver.

Here's the session:

	    cain-22> dir file.1
	    -rw-------  1 flint    staff         240 Jun 13 10:27 file.1

Firstly, just to show not a problem with dd or the write system call:

	    cain-28> dd if=file.1 of=tmp
	    0+1 records in
	    0+1 records out

Now, attempt the same operation but to tape:

	    cain-29> dd if=file.1 of=/dev/rst0
	    dd: write: Invalid argument
	    0+1 records in
	    0+1 records out

Note that adjusting the block-size does not help in any way.

What is interesting is that tar works fine with the same small file.

We're running SunOS 4.1.1 on an IPC - the tape drive is a QIC-150.  Actually,
we've got the same problem on two IPC's (with two tape drives) - so it's not
likely a hardware fault.

If you've got any idea on how to fix this, PLEASE let me know (preferrably
via e-mail).

-- 
	Daniel Baldoni