--- /dev/null
+%%
+%%
+
+\chapter{Supported Tape Drives}
+\label{SupportedDrives}
+\index[general]{Drives!Supported Tape }
+\index[general]{Supported Tape Drives }
+
+Bacula uses standard operating system calls (read, write, ioctl) to
+interface to tape drives. As a consequence, it relies on having a
+correctly written OS tape driver. Bacula is known to work perfectly well
+with SCSI tape drivers on FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, and Windows machines,
+and it may work on other *nix machines, but we have not tested it.
+Recently there are many new drives that use IDE, ATAPI, or
+SATA interfaces rather than SCSI. On Linux the OnStream drive, which uses
+the OSST driver is one such
+example, and it is known to work with Bacula. In addition a number of such
+tape drives (i.e. OS drivers) seem to work on Windows systems. However,
+non-SCSI tape drives (other than the OnStream) that use ide-scis, ide-tape,
+or other non-scsi drivers do not function correctly with Bacula (or any
+other demanding tape application) as of today (April 2007). If you
+have purchased a non-SCSI tape drive for use with Bacula on Linux, there
+is a good chance that it will not work. We are working with the kernel
+developers to rectify this situation, but it will not be resolved in the
+near future.
+
+Even if your drive is on the list below, please check the
+\ilink{Tape Testing Chapter}{btape1} of this manual for
+procedures that you can use to verify if your tape drive will work with
+Bacula. If your drive is in fixed block mode, it may appear to work with
+Bacula until you attempt to do a restore and Bacula wants to position the
+tape. You can be sure only by following the procedures suggested above and
+testing.
+
+It is very difficult to supply a list of supported tape drives, or drives that
+are known to work with Bacula because of limited feedback (so if you use
+Bacula on a different drive, please let us know). Based on user feedback, the
+following drives are known to work with Bacula. A dash in a column means
+unknown:
+
+\addcontentsline{lot}{table}{Supported Tape Drives}
+\begin{longtable}{|p{2.0in}|l|l|p{2.5in}|l|}
+ \hline
+\multicolumn{1}{|c| }{\bf OS } & \multicolumn{1}{c| }{\bf Man. } &
+\multicolumn{1}{c| }{\bf Media } & \multicolumn{1}{c| }{\bf Model } &
+\multicolumn{1}{c| }{\bf Capacity } \\
+ \hline {- } & {ADIC } & {DLT } & {Adic Scalar 100 DLT } & {100GB } \\
+ \hline {- } & {ADIC } & {DLT } & {Adic Fastor 22 DLT } & {- } \\
+ \hline {FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE-p1 amd64 } & {Certance} & {LTO } & {AdicCertance CL400 LTO Ultrium 2 } & {200GB } \\
+ \hline {- } & {- } & {DDS } & {Compaq DDS 2,3,4 } & {- } \\
+ \hline {SuSE 8.1 Pro} & {Compaq} & {AIT } & {Compaq AIT 35 LVD } & {35/70GB } \\
+ \hline {- } & {Exabyte } & {- } & {Exabyte drives less than 10 years old } & {- } \\
+ \hline {- } & {Exabyte } & {- } & {Exabyte VXA drives } & {- } \\
+ \hline {- } & {HP } & {Travan 4 } & {Colorado T4000S } & {- } \\
+ \hline {- } & {HP } & {DLT } & {HP DLT drives } & {- } \\
+ \hline {- } & {HP } & {LTO } & {HP LTO Ultrium drives } & {- } \\
+ \hline {- } & {IBM} & {??} & {3480, 3480XL, 3490, 3490E, 3580 and 3590 drives} & {- } \\
+ \hline {FreeBSD 4.10 RELEASE } & {HP } & {DAT } & {HP StorageWorks DAT72i } & {- } \\
+ \hline {- } & {Overland } & {LTO } & {LoaderXpress LTO } & {- } \\
+ \hline {- } & {Overland } & {- } & {Neo2000 } & {- } \\
+ \hline {- } & {OnStream } & {- } & {OnStream drives (see below) } & {- } \\
+ \hline {FreeBSD 4.11-Release} & {Quantum } & {SDLT } & {SDLT320 } & {160/320GB } \\
+ \hline {- } & {Quantum } & {DLT } & {DLT-8000 } & {40/80GB } \\
+ \hline {Linux } & {Seagate } & {DDS-4 } & {Scorpio 40 } & {20/40GB } \\
+ \hline {FreeBSD 4.9 STABLE } & {Seagate } & {DDS-4 } & {STA2401LW } & {20/40GB } \\
+ \hline {FreeBSD 5.2.1 pthreads patched RELEASE } & {Seagate } & {AIT-1 } & {STA1701W} & {35/70GB } \\
+ \hline {Linux } & {Sony } & {DDS-2,3,4 } & {- } & {4-40GB } \\
+ \hline {Linux } & {Tandberg } & {- } & {Tandbert MLR3 } & {- } \\
+ \hline {FreeBSD } & {Tandberg } & {- } & {Tandberg SLR6 } & {- } \\
+ \hline {Solaris } & {Tandberg } & {- } & {Tandberg SLR75 } & {- } \\
+ \hline
+
+\end{longtable}
+
+There is a list of \ilink{supported autochangers}{Models} in the Supported
+Autochangers chapter of this document, where you will find other tape drives
+that work with Bacula.
+
+\section{Unsupported Tape Drives}
+\label{UnSupportedDrives}
+\index[general]{Unsupported Tape Drives }
+\index[general]{Drives!Unsupported Tape }
+
+Previously OnStream IDE-SCSI tape drives did not work with Bacula. As of
+Bacula version 1.33 and the osst kernel driver version 0.9.14 or later, they
+now work. Please see the testing chapter as you must set a fixed block size.
+
+QIC tapes are known to have a number of particularities (fixed block size, and
+one EOF rather than two to terminate the tape). As a consequence, you will
+need to take a lot of care in configuring them to make them work correctly
+with Bacula.
+
+\section{FreeBSD Users Be Aware!!!}
+\index[general]{FreeBSD Users Be Aware }
+\index[general]{Aware!FreeBSD Users Be }
+
+Unless you have patched the pthreads library on FreeBSD 4.11 systems, you will
+lose data when Bacula spans tapes. This is because the unpatched pthreads
+library fails to return a warning status to Bacula that the end of the tape is
+near. This problem is fixed in FreeBSD systems released after 4.11. Please see the
+\ilink{Tape Testing Chapter}{FreeBSDTapes} of this manual for
+{\bf important} information on how to configure your tape drive for
+compatibility with Bacula.
+
+\section{Supported Autochangers}
+\index[general]{Autochangers!Supported }
+\index[general]{Supported Autochangers }
+
+For information on supported autochangers, please see the
+\ilink{Autochangers Known to Work with Bacula}{Models}
+section of the Supported Autochangers chapter of this manual.
+
+\section{Tape Specifications}
+\index[general]{Specifications!Tape}
+\index[general]{Tape Specifications}
+If you want to know what tape drive to buy that will work with Bacula,
+we really cannot tell you. However, we can say that if you are going
+to buy a drive, you should try to avoid DDS drives. The technology is
+rather old and DDS tape drives need frequent cleaning. DLT drives are
+generally much better (newer technology) and do not need frequent
+cleaning.
+
+Below, you will find a table of DLT and LTO tape specifications that will
+give you some idea of the capacity and speed of modern tapes. The
+capacities that are listed are the native tape capacity without compression.
+All modern drives have hardware compression, and manufacturers often list
+compressed capacity using a compression ration of 2:1. The actual compression
+ratio will depend mostly on the data you have to backup, but I find that
+1.5:1 is a much more reasonable number (i.e. multiply the value shown in
+the table by 1.5 to get a rough average of what you will probably see).
+The transfer rates are rounded to the nearest GB/hr. All values are provided
+by various manufacturers.
+
+The Media Type is what is designated by the manufacturers and you are not
+required to use (but you may) the same name in your Bacula conf resources.
+
+
+\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c}
+Media Type & Drive Type & Media Capacity & Transfer Rate \\ \hline
+DDS-1 & DAT & 2 GB & ?? GB/hr \\ \hline
+DDS-2 & DAT & 4 GB & ?? GB/hr \\ \hline
+DDS-3 & DAT & 12 GB & 5.4 GB/hr \\ \hline
+Travan 40 & Travan & 20 GB & ?? GB/hr \\ \hline
+DDS-4 & DAT & 20 GB & 11 GB/hr \\ \hline
+VXA-1 & Exabyte & 33 GB & 11 GB/hr \\ \hline
+DAT-72 & DAT & 36 GB & 13 GB/hr \\ \hline
+DLT IV & DLT8000 & 40 GB & 22 GB/hr \\ \hline
+VXA-2 & Exabyte & 80 GB & 22 GB/hr \\ \hline
+Half-high Ultrium 1 & LTO 1 & 100 GB & 27 GB/hr \\ \hline
+Ultrium 1 & LTO 1 & 100 GB & 54 GB/hr \\ \hline
+Super DLT 1 & SDLT 220 & 110 GB & 40 GB/hr \\ \hline
+VXA-3 & Exabyte & 160 GB & 43 GB/hr \\ \hline
+Super DLT I & SDLT 320 & 160 GB & 58 GB/hr \\ \hline
+Ultrium 2 & LTO 2 & 200 GB & 108 GB/hr \\ \hline
+Super DLT II & SDLT 600 & 300 GB & 127 GB/hr \\ \hline
+VXA-4 & Exabyte & 320 GB & 86 GB/hr \\ \hline
+Ultrium 3 & LTO 3 & 400 GB & 216 GB/hr \\ \hline
+\end{tabular}
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