AIX

Hello everyone

I want to use compression in my tape when I backup some file. For example I have several files that use 50gb. If I backup this I need to use two cartridge because without compression I can backup 36gb.

My question is with flag I need to use to compress and I can use 72gb in each cartridge.

I use tape DAT72

My server is a Aix 6.1 power 6 model570 and the tape model its a 7214.

Thanks for your advices.

Greetings

If you are using tar to create your backup, the answer varies. The GNU version of tar has an option (-z) that allows you to create compressed tarballs in one action. The Solaris version does not offer this option, but Solaris does offer the GNU version in the /usr/sfw/bin folder. AIX may provide a similar option or perhaps they include the GNU set of utilities as Solaris does. Good luck

The IBM drives have a hardware compression and feeding them compressed data might well have an adverse effect.

I wonder why you use DAT72 tapes, because the 7214 comes with one of two possible drives: one for DAT160 (80GB) or DAT320 (160GB) tapes or an Ultrium drive for LTO4 tapes (800GB).

The drive you use (obviously the former one) is downward-compatible with DAT72 (and DDS4, for that matter, according to IBMs product description), but you could simply switch to another medium and use its real capacity.

Btw.: a simple search for "IBM 7214" in Google revealed the mentioned link as first hit and the information about the drive options are near the top of the linked page. It is not forbidden to use Google prior to opening a thread here.

I hope this helps.

bakunin