Tape dumping, Rays epiphany

From: Stan Sieler <sieler_at_allegro.com>
Date: Fri May 3 14:15:01 2002

Re:
> With modern SCSI tape devices, blocking and unblocking are no
> longer a necessity, as the hardware reads and writes 512-byte data blocks.

With DDS, however, variable length records are possible ... however unlikely
they might be in normal Unix usage.

I just successfully did:

   insert new tape

   write 10 bytes
   write 12 bytes
   write 14 bytes
   
   rewind

   read 20000 bytes --> got 10 bytes
  
   read 20000 bytes --> got 12 bytes

   read 20000 bytes --> got 14 bytes

So, the DDS (DAT) drive (which happens to be SCSI) is remembering the
record lengths, supporting variable length records.
Stan Sieler sieler_at_allegro.com
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html www.allegro.com/sieler
Received on Fri May 03 2002 - 14:15:01 BST