Re: percentage of 8mm backup tape used

From: Vipin Khushu (vkhushu_at_GUERNSEYOP.COM)
Date: 11/25/03

  • Next message: Bill Verzal: "Re: percentage of 8mm backup tape used" 
    Date:         Tue, 25 Nov 2003 12:38:26 -0500
To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU

    Thanks. One of these ought to work.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Green, Simon [mailto:Simon.Green@EU.ALTRIA.COM]
    Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 5:32 AM
    To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
    Subject: Re: percentage of 8mm backup tape used

    One way is if whatever backup command you're using reports how much data has
    been written, or has an option to inspect what's on the tape. e.g. "tar
    -tvf /dev/rmt0" output will tell you the size of each file backed up, so you
    might knock up a quick script to give you the sum of those. Or you can
    collect that information when the backup is created, which would have the
    advantage of not having to read the whole tape again. That's going to be
    the uncompressed sizes, though.

    Another option might be with "dd if=<your backup file> of=/dev/null
    ibs=<some value>". That'll give you a record count, which has the advantage
    of being the compressed size. I don't know if you could run it for an
    entire tape, or whether you'd have to do it for each file on the tape
    individually. You can specify any block size you like, I think: a large
    blocksize will run a bit quicker, but give you less precision.

    Simon Green
    Altria ITSC Europe Ltd

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    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: Vipin Khushu [mailto:vkhushu@GUERNSEYOP.COM]
    > Sent: 24 November 2003 22:06
    > To: aix-l@Princeton.EDU
    > Subject: percentage of 8mm backup tape used
    >
    >
    > Anybody know of a way to determine what percentage / how much
    > of a tape has
    > been used up during a backup to determine how much more we
    > can throw on to
    > the tape?
    >
    > The media in question is Lexmark (previously IBM) part number 59H2678
    > capacity - 20/40GB (uncompressed / compressed), length - 170M.
    >
    > I looked at the tctl command but nothing stood out.

  • Next message: Bill Verzal: "Re: percentage of 8mm backup tape used"

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