High performance tape software

[creon at ames-nas-gw.arpa]

From:  Creon Levit <creon at ames-nas-gw.arpa>


We have tu77s and tu78s running under 4.2bsd.

Has anyone done any of the the following:

1) compare dump speed to tar and dd speed
2) compare above to VMS backup utility speed and system V cpio speed.
3) compare to another tape drive (I am aware of bsd tape system perf. paper
   in Unix conference proceedings)
5) high performance tar (I here someone actaully has a tu78 running
   full speed with tar)
6) look at mt, ht, and kernel to improve performance of tapes generally.

Is there some simple hack to tar or dump, such as increasing a buffer
size, that will improve its performance?

I will summarize responses to the net.

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