🚀 go-pugleaf

coherent!celeste@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Celeste C. Stokely) writes:
>Like everyone else, I want to buy an Exabyte tape drive. A vendor just
>told me of a hitch, though. He says that tapes written under any driver
>he's found for SunOS 3.5 can NOT be read under SunOS 4.0!...

According to the Exabyte EXB-800 installation manual there are two
significant changes to SCSI tape operations under SunOS 4.0. The maximum
blocking factor is now 126 and variable block mode is now the default. It
goes on to say that to ensure compatibility tapes written on 3.x systems
should have blocking factors <= 126 and when reading 3.x tape on a 4.0
system you should expilicitly specify the same blocking factor with which
the tape was written to force a read in fixed block mode.

Please note: We just got our exabyte yesterday. I have not yet installed
it on our system and have no pratical experience with tape compatibility
between SunOSes. Like Will Rogers almost said, "All I know is what I read
in the manuals." 

--Bill