Monday 20 August 2018

backup - How often does an LTO tape brake and return for a full write?


A return could sound similar to "shoe shining" but it slews down very quick before the turn. How many returns are required to write a full tape for the LTO generations 1 to 6 respectively?
This is the image I have from the LTO system:


BOT |-------------->-------| EOT first write till end, 
brake, move servo of the head to the next track, write in reverse direction
BOT |-----<----------------| EOT write till start is reached and so on...

Answer



The way I interpret the word "rewind" the answer is "none" - well, maybe one at the end of the whole operation. "Rewind" to me means shuttling the tape from takeup to supply reel without reading or writing anything.


LTO doesn't write to the end of the tape, rewind, and then start again from the beginning of the tape. All LTO versions use "serpentine" recording, meaning that alternate passes record from beginning to end, then end to beginning, etc.


The Wikipedia article on LTO describes this quite well. Look at the table of LTO parameters. The next-to-last row shows the "End-to-end passes required to fill tape". This is simply the number of "data bands per tape" (so far this is four in all versions) multiplied by the number of "wraps per band". For example, LTO-4 needs 4 x 14 = 56 wraps (end-to-end passes) to write the tape's full capacity.


But never does it "rewind" without actually doing any writing... except at the end of the run, when you're at the physical EOT and you want to remove the cartridge.


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