Lloyd,
Here is my Level 1 equivalent to Bill's (likely more helpful) email.
I am curious to see the output of the following commands:
ls -lah /dev/tape/by-id/
ls -lah /dev/tape/drive_1
lsscsi
Overall, I suspect "tapedriveSD1-1" (/dev/tape/drive_1) may have had its
device assignment change. This is possible, at least. I assume you are
familiar with the fact that a hard drive in /dev/sda could change after a
reboot. /dev/sda isn't a guaranteed assignment. Your device
/dev/tape/drive_1 might be a custom assignment, but I would certainly check
it first. Best practice is to give bacula a device path which will not
change.
Generally, it is wise to provide a non-rewinding device, to avoid
unnecessary rewinds for cases when the tape is already in the drive and
ready to write. Excess rewinds needlessly delay backups and accelerate
drive mechanism wear.
st = Scsi Tape
nst = Non-rewinding Scsi Tape
If you access a tape drive using an st device (example: /dev/st0) instead
of the preferred nst (example: /dev/nst0), you will include an implied
rewind at certain times when the drive is accessed. Bacula is fully capable
of issuing rewind commands, so we shouldn't do that work for it.
For your tape drive(s) and your autochanger, please share your storage {}
and/or autochanger {} definitions from bacula-dir.conf and the relevant
device {} and autochanger {} definitions from bacula-sd.conf. Depending on
how you set up your system and where you got bacula, the locations and
names of these files could vary.
What results do you get when you run the btape tests? *Please note that
these tests are DESTRUCTIVE!* Please only run them on tapes which do not
contain production data.
https://www.bacula.org/15.0.x-manuals/en/problems/Testing_Your_Tape_Drive_Wit.html#SECTION003210000000000000000
Here is an example of my LTO-8 configuration in bacula 13.x. I only have 1
drive, in a Flexstor II 24 tape changer from Qualstar (manufactured by BDE).
bacula-sd.conf
Device {
Name = "drive0"
MediaType = "LTO-8"
ArchiveDevice = "/dev/tape/by-id/scsi-1234567890-nst"
RemovableMedia = yes
RandomAccess = no
AutomaticMount = yes
AlwaysOpen = no
Autochanger = yes
DriveIndex = 0
SpoolDirectory = /mnt/spool
MaximumSpoolSize = 75G
MaximumFileSize = 75G
MaximumConcurrentJobs = 1
}
Autochanger {
Name = "Q24"
Device = "drive0"
ChangerDevice =
"/dev/tape/by-id/scsi-1BDT_FlexStor_II_0987654321_LL0-changer"
ChangerCommand = "/opt/bacula/scripts/mtx-changer %c %o %S %a %d"
}
bacula-dir.conf:
Storage {
Name = "Q24"
SdPort = 9103
Address = "my-bacula-host"
Password = "MyPasswordWhichIHaveRedacted"
Device = "drive0"
MediaType = "LTO-8"
Autochanger = "Q24"
MaximumConcurrentJobs = 1
}
Regards,
Robert Gerber
402-237-8692 <(402)%20237-8692>
[email protected]
On Mon, Oct 5, 2026 at 4:53 PM Lloyd Brown via Bacula-users <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Hey, all.
>
> I've run Bacula off and on for several years, including v5 and v9, both
> using disk for the backup media. I'm setting up my first instance using
> tape, and Bacula 15. I keep intermittently running into I/O errors on
> the tape, which seems to cause Bacula to declare the tape as "Full",
> even if it's only used 10s of MB of a 30TB tape. Are there any general
> recommendations for setup that I might have missed? Some kind of retry
> mechanism? Some kind of tuning? I've already replaced SAS cables, and
> it doesn't seem to make any real difference.
>
> In this case, I'm running one RHEL 9.6 host, attached via SAS to 2
> LTO-10 drives, in a Spectra Stack tape library. Using the stock Linux
> tape drivers, not the IBM ITDT specialty driver. The other tenant in
> the library (Versity) has not had issues even remotely resembling these.
>
> I'm attaching an excerpt from the bacula log when the I/O errors
> occurred. I'm still trying to find system logs from around the same
> time. Any recommendations or pointers welcome.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Lloyd
>
>
> --
> Lloyd Brown
> HPC Systems Administrator
> Office of Research Computing
> Brigham Young University
> http://rc.byu.edu
> _______________________________________________
> Bacula-users mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
>
_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
