Re: LTO 8 Slow write speeds

Gilles Van Vlasselaer <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.bacula.user
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi Udo,

> That's good news. Please leave out the "Minimum Block Size". "Maximum 
> Block Size" defines also the default that will be used. ITDT made up 
> the 29G, you don't need to adhere to them. Even though 1024K Transfer 
> Size is not listed in the ITDT table you should give it a try.
I can't seem to get Maximum block size = 1024K to work, I can't label 
the tapes either with btape or bconsole;

Tape block granularity is 1024 bytes.

btape:btape.c:477-0 open device "ultrium" (/dev/nst0): OK

*label

Enter Volume Name: a-test-label

Wrote Volume label for volume "a-test-label".

*readlabel

11-Apr 15:29 btape JobId 0: Error: [SE0203] The Volume=a-test-label on device="ultrium" (/dev/nst0) appears to be unlabeled.

btape:btape.c:525-0 Volume has no label.

Volume Label:

Adata             : 0

Id                : **error**VerNo             : 11

VolName           : a-test-label

PrevVolName       :

VolFile           : 0

LabelType         : PRE_LABEL

LabelSize         : 0

PoolName          : Default

MediaType         : LTO

PoolType          : Backup

*wr
btape:block.c:163-0 [SF0205] Attempt to write on read-only Volume. dev="ultrium" (/dev/nst0)
btape JobId 0: Fatal error:block.c:163 [SF0205] Attempt to write on read-only Volume. dev="ultrium" (/dev/nst0)
btape:btape.c:1913-0 Error writing block to device.

When I revert it to 512K, the labeling works as expected, maybe the 
drive isn't capable of managing 1M block sizes?

Tape block granularity is 1024 bytes.

btape:btape.c:477-0 open device "ultrium" (/dev/nst0): OK

*label

Enter Volume Name: b-test-label

Wrote Volume label for volume "b-test-label".

*readlabel

btape:btape.c:528-0 Volume label read correctly.

Volume Label:

Adata             : 0

Id                : Bacula 1.0 immortal

VerNo             : 11

VolName           : b-test-label

PrevVolName       :

VolFile           : 0

LabelType         : PRE_LABEL

LabelSize         : 184

PoolName          : Default

MediaType         : LTO

PoolType          : Backup

*wr
btape:btape.c:1916-0 Wrote one record of 524188 bytes.
btape:btape.c:1918-0 Wrote block to device.

Whilst being in the btape CLI, I was running test and when Max block 
size is set to 512K I get the following;

Doing Bacula scan of blocks:

1 block of 524224 bytes in file 1

End of File mark.

2 blocks of 524224 bytes in file 2

End of File mark.

3 blocks of 524224 bytes in file 3

End of File mark.

1 block of 524224 bytes in file 4

End of File mark.

Total files=4, blocks=7, bytes = 3,669,568

End scanning the tape.

We should be in file 4. I am at file 4. This is correct!

The above Bacula scan should have output identical to what follows.

Please double check it ...

=== Sample correct output ===

1 block of 64448 bytes in file 1

End of File mark.

2 blocks of 64448 bytes in file 2

End of File mark.

3 blocks of 64448 bytes in file 3

End of File mark.

1 block of 64448 bytes in file 4

End of File mark.

Total files=4, blocks=7, bytes = 451,136

=== End sample correct output ===

If the above scan output is not identical to the

sample output, you MUST correct the problem

or Bacula will not be able to write multiple Jobs to

the tape.

When I removed the Max Block size property the sample and scan output 
are identical, should I be worried?

> Please reevaluate your spool disk. As you can see in the ITDT table 
> you already need 389MB/sec sustained if data is compressible.
All our backups are already compressed, I assume a Copy Job doesn't 
decompress beforehand?

Anyway, thanks once again for your input, have a nice weekend

- Gilles

On 4/10/25 19:58, Udo Kaune wrote:
> Am 10.04.25 um 13:33 schrieb Gilles Van Vlasselaer:
>>
>> Hi Udo,
>>
>> Thanks for your input, with the itdt command I got the following;
>>
>> Compres- Transfer  Data Size Elapsed  Data Rate
>>    able   Size (KB)   (MB)    Time (s)   (MB/s)
>> +------+---------+---------+--------+----------+
>> | No   | 512     | 29999   | 104.766| 286.342  |
>> | No   | 256     | 29999   | 104.386| 287.385  |
>> | No   | 128     | 29999   | 114.132| 262.844  |
>> | No   | 64      | 29999   | 155.715| 192.654  |
>> | Yes  | 512     | 29999   | 76.9336| 389.934  |
>> | Yes  | 256     | 29999   | 85.9795| 348.909  |
>> | Yes  | 128     | 29999   | 108.639| 276.135  |
>> | Yes  | 64      | 29999   | 152.646| 196.526  |
>>
>> In the Device resource for my LTO drive I've added;
>>
>> Minimum block size = 256K # Seemed to be optimal
>> Maximum blocksize = 512K  # Seemed to be optimal
>> Maximum File Size = 29G   # Less start-stops for EOF marks
>>
>> The Bacula docs defines a default of 64K which seemed to perform 
>> 'poorly' for my drive.
>>
>> Now I'm running a test copy job of 600GB, averaging 210MB/sec and 
>> peaking 240MB/sec at time, huge improvement, never heard the drive 
>> zoom so hard during writes.
>>
>> Thank you once again!
>>
>> - Gilles
>>
>
> Hi Gilles,
>
> That's good news. Please leave out the "Minimum Block Size". "Maximum 
> Block Size" defines also the default that will be used. ITDT made up 
> the 29G, you don't need to adhere to them. Even though 1024K Transfer 
> Size is not listed in the ITDT table you should give it a try.
> Please reevaluate your spool disk. As you can see in the ITDT table 
> you already need 389MB/sec sustained if data is compressible.
>
> br, Udo
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