Technical data

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Chapter 5: Operation
Remove a tape cartridge as follows:
1. When the yellow Tape in Use LED glows steadily, press the Unload button; the LED
starts to blink.
2. When the green Operate Handle LED comes on, lift the handle and remove the tape.
3. Return the tape to its plastic container.
The green Operate Handle LED must be on before you open the handle or remove a tape.
Note: Always remove the tape cartridge from the DLT2000XT before turning off power
to the drive.
Tape Operation
You can select compression from the host using the appropriate SCSI tape interface; see
the tps reference page for more information. The default selection is the native tape
density of 15.0 GB for the CompacTape IIIXT cartridge. For interchange compatibility
with earlier drives, the tape drive can write 2.6-, 6.0-, and 10.0-GB tape formats. On a
write from BOT, the tape drive automatically reformats the tape cartridge to 15.0 GB. The
drive automatically reads the media regardless of the format.
Note: After a bus reset, the tape drive responds within a bus selection timeout period.
Although the system manager backup and restore tool reports the DLT2000XT tape drive
or DLT2500XT stacker as “unknown,” it works correctly.
Tape Data Block Transfer Sizing
The DLT2000XT tape drive or DLT2500XT stacker default data block transfer size is 4K
(4096) bytes. Depending on your particular applications, the fullest data transfer
performance can be obtained by specifying a variable block size during backups or other
data transfer operations. To use the variable setting when performing backups, use the v
addition to the device identifier when specifying data for backup. For example, the
following command copies all files in the current directory to a DLT2000XT drive that is
installed as SCSI unit 6 on controller 0.
% tar -cvf /dev/mt/tps0d6v *
The v added at the end of the device identifier tps0d6 allows the system to vary the block
transfer size to achieve the most efficient transfer of data.