Issue setting up LTO-9 tapes

[AlexPowell]

Hi,
I have an HPE StoreEver 1/8 G2 autoloader with LTO-9 tapes

When I do the slow format of the tape, (proxmox-tape format --drive drive0 --fast 0

I get the following:
Slow formatting LTO9+ media
TASK ERROR: erase failed - scsi command failed: transport error
Error: task failed (status erase failed - scsi command failed: transport error)

Any tips? All the equipment is brand new. The tape drive is performing the calibration of the tape when the command is run, so I'm not sure what the problem is

 

[dietmar]

Is the LTO9 Tape already initialized?

 

[AlexPowell]

I believe it is - the "calibration" is the initialisation.
I'll be honest, this is my first time touching tapes - although I have 15 years of enterprise IT experience.

The HPE web GUI has a media init wizard - however this says "N.A." when attempting to start it. It then goes on to say that the initialization includes a media calibration process - and I know that this has completed on the tape. Is there an easy way to check if the tape has been initialised?

 

[AlexPowell]

An update - I have logged a support ticket with HPE because I'm not entirely confident that there is not an issue with the autoloader. The options to initialise the tapes don't appear to be working.

Once this is resolved I will try again. If proxmox is not backing up to tape after this, I will attempt to copy data to the tapes just using Linux tools. If that works and proves the tape system to be functional - then I will return here

 

[AlexPowell]

Does mtx and sg3-utils need to be installed on the PBS? It's not in the proxmox documentation, however this is typical on Linux systems that are managing tape

 

[dcsapak]

mtx is not needed (we use our own code for that functionality pmt/pmtx instead of mt/mtx) but sg3-utils is automaticaly installed

 

[AlexPowell]

Hi,
The issue was that the tapes themselves did not have barcode labels on them, and I wasn't aware that this step was required in order for everything to work. I didn't see this written anywhere haha - so I guess this is a bit of assumed knowledge

 

[dcsapak]

The issue was that the tapes themselves did not have barcode labels on them, and I wasn't aware that this step was required in order for everything to work. I didn't see this written anywhere haha - so I guess this is a bit of assumed knowledge

nice you found the problem... well for a changer to work properly you need those, since otherwise we and the changer cannot know which tape is where...