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Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000

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mcdouga9 at egr

May 9, 2008, 8:02 AM

Post #1 of 6 (411 views)
Permalink

Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000

Asking here because we don't have current Overland support for the fibre
channel card and I would guess it is more of a problem with the card
rather than netapp (we only used the FCO with a netapp), but maybe
someone has encountered this...

Around 2004 we bought a Overland Neo 2000 tape library with the FCO VIA
scsi to FC converter board, and we got at most 20 or 25MB/sec through it
(per tape drive) depending if we were writing or reading. This is both
with NDMP dumps from the filer disks to tape, and also across the
network into the filer to tape with NDMP. The backup software is
Bakbone Netvault. Last year we tried attaching this library to a Unix
host directly with SCSI and our speed almost doubled. I was floored,
and shocked that we spent so many years missing out on performance,
although 20-25 was the best I've seen anyone report for LTO2 so I never
expected more.

Recently we bought another Neo 2000 with LTO4 drives, and I decided to
move the FCO card over to it and try again, hoping maybe there was a
misconfiguration, but I could not find any and it still acts as if there
is a mystery cap on the speed of 20MB/sec (it averages 18-19 after it
gets going). I've been all through the configuration of the FCO card
and it is set to 160M/sec per scsi bus, tried with and without domain
validation, and I even got the FC channel to operate at 2Gbit but no
improvement. If I cannot figure this out then I will just attach it to
the Unix host with the other neo 2000, but its always nice to have more
options. I would not bother operating a LTO4 drive at such a slow speed
in production because shoe-shining would probably wear it out and the
compression would be sub optimal or non-existent.

MDAVIES at generalatlantic

May 9, 2008, 8:57 AM

Post #2 of 6 (394 views)
Permalink

RE: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000 [In reply to]

Couple of thoughts, increasing the number of buffers, within the
performance tab of configure for the tape drive and changing the block
size.

Cheers

Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com]
On Behalf Of Adam McDougall
Sent: 09 May 2008 16:02
To: Toasters
Subject: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland
neo 2000

Asking here because we don't have current Overland support for the fibre

channel card and I would guess it is more of a problem with the card
rather than netapp (we only used the FCO with a netapp), but maybe
someone has encountered this...

Around 2004 we bought a Overland Neo 2000 tape library with the FCO VIA
scsi to FC converter board, and we got at most 20 or 25MB/sec through it

(per tape drive) depending if we were writing or reading. This is both
with NDMP dumps from the filer disks to tape, and also across the
network into the filer to tape with NDMP. The backup software is
Bakbone Netvault. Last year we tried attaching this library to a Unix
host directly with SCSI and our speed almost doubled. I was floored,
and shocked that we spent so many years missing out on performance,
although 20-25 was the best I've seen anyone report for LTO2 so I never
expected more.

Recently we bought another Neo 2000 with LTO4 drives, and I decided to
move the FCO card over to it and try again, hoping maybe there was a
misconfiguration, but I could not find any and it still acts as if there

is a mystery cap on the speed of 20MB/sec (it averages 18-19 after it
gets going). I've been all through the configuration of the FCO card
and it is set to 160M/sec per scsi bus, tried with and without domain
validation, and I even got the FC channel to operate at 2Gbit but no
improvement. If I cannot figure this out then I will just attach it to
the Unix host with the other neo 2000, but its always nice to have more
options. I would not bother operating a LTO4 drive at such a slow speed

in production because shoe-shining would probably wear it out and the
compression would be sub optimal or non-existent.

_____________________________________________________________
This e-mail (including all attachments) is confidential and may be privileged.
It is for the exclusive use of the addressee only. If you are not the addressee,
you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly
prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please erase all
copies of the message and its attachments and notify us immediately at
help[at]generalatlantic.com <mailto:help[at]generalatlantic.com>. Thank You.

mcdouga9 at egr

May 9, 2008, 10:11 AM

Post #3 of 6 (394 views)
Permalink

Re: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000 [In reply to]

We've been using 65537k for transfer buffers for at least half a year at
the recommendation of some docs, and 16384k before that. We also used
64k block size on the LTO2 tapes because it gained us a few megabytes
per second (128k did not work), but I hope to avoid going over approx
63k because some operating systems need tuning or kernel hacking to do
larger transfers than 64k. We have not attempted a direct SCSI
connection with LTO4 yet (maybe next week, not on a Friday afternoon
before the weekend backups start).

Davies,Matt wrote:
> Couple of thoughts, increasing the number of buffers, within the
> performance tab of configure for the tape drive and changing the block
> size.
>
> Cheers
>
> Matt
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com]
> On Behalf Of Adam McDougall
> Sent: 09 May 2008 16:02
> To: Toasters
> Subject: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland
> neo 2000
>
> Asking here because we don't have current Overland support for the fibre
>
> channel card and I would guess it is more of a problem with the card
> rather than netapp (we only used the FCO with a netapp), but maybe
> someone has encountered this...
>
> Around 2004 we bought a Overland Neo 2000 tape library with the FCO VIA
> scsi to FC converter board, and we got at most 20 or 25MB/sec through it
>
> (per tape drive) depending if we were writing or reading. This is both
> with NDMP dumps from the filer disks to tape, and also across the
> network into the filer to tape with NDMP. The backup software is
> Bakbone Netvault. Last year we tried attaching this library to a Unix
> host directly with SCSI and our speed almost doubled. I was floored,
> and shocked that we spent so many years missing out on performance,
> although 20-25 was the best I've seen anyone report for LTO2 so I never
> expected more.
>
> Recently we bought another Neo 2000 with LTO4 drives, and I decided to
> move the FCO card over to it and try again, hoping maybe there was a
> misconfiguration, but I could not find any and it still acts as if there
>
> is a mystery cap on the speed of 20MB/sec (it averages 18-19 after it
> gets going). I've been all through the configuration of the FCO card
> and it is set to 160M/sec per scsi bus, tried with and without domain
> validation, and I even got the FC channel to operate at 2Gbit but no
> improvement. If I cannot figure this out then I will just attach it to
> the Unix host with the other neo 2000, but its always nice to have more
> options. I would not bother operating a LTO4 drive at such a slow speed
>
> in production because shoe-shining would probably wear it out and the
> compression would be sub optimal or non-existent.
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________________
> This e-mail (including all attachments) is confidential and may be privileged.
> It is for the exclusive use of the addressee only. If you are not the addressee,
> you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly
> prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please erase all
> copies of the message and its attachments and notify us immediately at
> help[at]generalatlantic.com <mailto:help[at]generalatlantic.com>. Thank You.
>
>

chris.holloway at DNSArrow

May 9, 2008, 12:10 PM

Post #4 of 6 (392 views)
Permalink

Re: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000 [In reply to]

I have seen the minra option on the volume have a major affect on backup speed. Have you got it set to minra=on on any of your volumes?

Cheers
Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com <owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com>
To: Toasters <toasters[at]mathworks.com>
Sent: Fri May 09 16:02:14 2008
Subject: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000

Asking here because we don't have current Overland support for the fibre
channel card and I would guess it is more of a problem with the card
rather than netapp (we only used the FCO with a netapp), but maybe
someone has encountered this...

Around 2004 we bought a Overland Neo 2000 tape library with the FCO VIA
scsi to FC converter board, and we got at most 20 or 25MB/sec through it
(per tape drive) depending if we were writing or reading. This is both
with NDMP dumps from the filer disks to tape, and also across the
network into the filer to tape with NDMP. The backup software is
Bakbone Netvault. Last year we tried attaching this library to a Unix
host directly with SCSI and our speed almost doubled. I was floored,
and shocked that we spent so many years missing out on performance,
although 20-25 was the best I've seen anyone report for LTO2 so I never
expected more.

Recently we bought another Neo 2000 with LTO4 drives, and I decided to
move the FCO card over to it and try again, hoping maybe there was a
misconfiguration, but I could not find any and it still acts as if there
is a mystery cap on the speed of 20MB/sec (it averages 18-19 after it
gets going). I've been all through the configuration of the FCO card
and it is set to 160M/sec per scsi bus, tried with and without domain
validation, and I even got the FC channel to operate at 2Gbit but no
improvement. If I cannot figure this out then I will just attach it to
the Unix host with the other neo 2000, but its always nice to have more
options. I would not bother operating a LTO4 drive at such a slow speed
in production because shoe-shining would probably wear it out and the
compression would be sub optimal or non-existent. --------------------------------------------------------

Christopher Holloway
Lead Consultant
Professional Services

Main: +44 (0)1423 519000
Direct: +44 (0)1423 519099
Mobile: +44 (0)7867 783584
Fax: +44 (0)1423 504415

DNS Arrow launches new enhanced customer portal - Inform an e-commerce partner tool to help customers save time and money in procurement.
For more information on Inform, please contact your account manager on 0800 983 2525 or register for an account at www.dnsarrow.co.uk/inform

DNS Arrow
Nidderdale House
Beckwith Knowle
Harrogate
HG3 1SA
www.DNSarrow.co.uk

Email Confidentiality Notice: This message is private and confidential. If you have received this message in error, please notify us and remove it from your system.

"DNS Arrow" means Digital Network Services (UK) Limited, a company registered in England. Company Registration Number 3952678.
Registered Office: Nidderdale House, Otley Road, Beckwith Knowle, Harrogate HG3 1SA, UK.

Stetson.Webster at netapp

May 9, 2008, 2:09 PM

Post #5 of 6 (392 views)
Permalink

Re: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000 [In reply to]

Hey Folks,
Bringing up 'minra' starts to tread into a performance issue. I highly recommend that a NetApp support case be opened to ensure that this is handled with the appropriate skillset, experience and attention.

Pardon brevity, typos, etc; sent from mobile.

-----Original Message-----
From: Holloway, Chris [mailto:chris.holloway[at]DNSArrow.co.uk]
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 12:26 PM Pacific Standard Time
To: mcdouga9[at]egr.msu.edu; toasters[at]mathworks.com
Subject: Re: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000

I have seen the minra option on the volume have a major affect on backup speed. Have you got it set to minra=on on any of your volumes?

Cheers
Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com <owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com>
To: Toasters <toasters[at]mathworks.com>
Sent: Fri May 09 16:02:14 2008
Subject: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000

Asking here because we don't have current Overland support for the fibre
channel card and I would guess it is more of a problem with the card
rather than netapp (we only used the FCO with a netapp), but maybe
someone has encountered this...

Around 2004 we bought a Overland Neo 2000 tape library with the FCO VIA
scsi to FC converter board, and we got at most 20 or 25MB/sec through it
(per tape drive) depending if we were writing or reading. This is both
with NDMP dumps from the filer disks to tape, and also across the
network into the filer to tape with NDMP. The backup software is
Bakbone Netvault. Last year we tried attaching this library to a Unix
host directly with SCSI and our speed almost doubled. I was floored,
and shocked that we spent so many years missing out on performance,
although 20-25 was the best I've seen anyone report for LTO2 so I never
expected more.

Recently we bought another Neo 2000 with LTO4 drives, and I decided to
move the FCO card over to it and try again, hoping maybe there was a
misconfiguration, but I could not find any and it still acts as if there
is a mystery cap on the speed of 20MB/sec (it averages 18-19 after it
gets going). I've been all through the configuration of the FCO card
and it is set to 160M/sec per scsi bus, tried with and without domain
validation, and I even got the FC channel to operate at 2Gbit but no
improvement. If I cannot figure this out then I will just attach it to
the Unix host with the other neo 2000, but its always nice to have more
options. I would not bother operating a LTO4 drive at such a slow speed
in production because shoe-shining would probably wear it out and the
compression would be sub optimal or non-existent. --------------------------------------------------------

Christopher Holloway
Lead Consultant
Professional Services

Main: +44 (0)1423 519000
Direct: +44 (0)1423 519099
Mobile: +44 (0)7867 783584
Fax: +44 (0)1423 504415

DNS Arrow launches new enhanced customer portal - Inform an e-commerce partner tool to help customers save time and money in procurement.
For more information on Inform, please contact your account manager on 0800 983 2525 or register for an account at www.dnsarrow.co.uk/inform

DNS Arrow
Nidderdale House
Beckwith Knowle
Harrogate
HG3 1SA
www.DNSarrow.co.uk

Email Confidentiality Notice: This message is private and confidential. If you have received this message in error, please notify us and remove it from your system.

"DNS Arrow" means Digital Network Services (UK) Limited, a company registered in England. Company Registration Number 3952678.
Registered Office: Nidderdale House, Otley Road, Beckwith Knowle, Harrogate HG3 1SA, UK.

mcdouga9 at egr

May 9, 2008, 3:19 PM

Post #6 of 6 (389 views)
Permalink

Re: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland neo 2000 [In reply to]

Nope, I may have experimented with it on a volume not in production
once, but I never tested backups in combination with it. The only
options I have enabled anywhere on volumes are nosnap, nosnapdir, and root.

Holloway, Chris wrote:
>
> I have seen the minra option on the volume have a major affect on
> backup speed. Have you got it set to minra=on on any of your volumes?
>
> Cheers
> Chris
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com <owner-toasters[at]mathworks.com>
> To: Toasters <toasters[at]mathworks.com>
> Sent: Fri May 09 16:02:14 2008
> Subject: Max of 20MB/sec through FC attached LTO tape drive? Overland
> neo 2000
>
> Asking here because we don't have current Overland support for the fibre
> channel card and I would guess it is more of a problem with the card
> rather than netapp (we only used the FCO with a netapp), but maybe
> someone has encountered this...
>
> Around 2004 we bought a Overland Neo 2000 tape library with the FCO VIA
> scsi to FC converter board, and we got at most 20 or 25MB/sec through it
> (per tape drive) depending if we were writing or reading. This is both
> with NDMP dumps from the filer disks to tape, and also across the
> network into the filer to tape with NDMP. The backup software is
> Bakbone Netvault. Last year we tried attaching this library to a Unix
> host directly with SCSI and our speed almost doubled. I was floored,
> and shocked that we spent so many years missing out on performance,
> although 20-25 was the best I've seen anyone report for LTO2 so I never
> expected more.
>
> Recently we bought another Neo 2000 with LTO4 drives, and I decided to
> move the FCO card over to it and try again, hoping maybe there was a
> misconfiguration, but I could not find any and it still acts as if there
> is a mystery cap on the speed of 20MB/sec (it averages 18-19 after it
> gets going). I've been all through the configuration of the FCO card
> and it is set to 160M/sec per scsi bus, tried with and without domain
> validation, and I even got the FC channel to operate at 2Gbit but no
> improvement. If I cannot figure this out then I will just attach it to
> the Unix host with the other neo 2000, but its always nice to have more
> options. I would not bother operating a LTO4 drive at such a slow speed
> in production because shoe-shining would probably wear it out and the
> compression would be sub optimal or non-existent.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Christopher Holloway
> Lead Consultant
> Professional Services
>
> *Main: +44 (0)1423 519000*
> *Direct: +44 (0)1423 519099*
> *Mobile: +44 (0)7867 783584*
> *Fax: +44 (0)1423 504415*
>
> **
>
> *DNS Arrow launches new enhanced customer portal - Inform an
> e-commerce partner tool to help customers save time and money in
> procurement. **
> *For more information on Inform, please contact your account
> manager on *0800 983 2525* or register for an account
> at *www.dnsarrow.co.uk/inform* <http://www.dnsarrow.co.uk/inform>
>
> *
>
> * *DNS Arrow*
> Nidderdale House
> Beckwith Knowle
> Harrogate
> HG3 1SA
> *www.DNSarrow.co.uk* <http://www.dnsarrow.co.uk/>
>
> * *
>
> Email Confidentiality Notice:* *This message is private and
> confidential. If you have received this message in error, please
> notify us and remove it from your system.
>
> "DNS Arrow" means Digital Network Services (UK) Limited, a company
> registered in England. Company Registration Number 3952678.
>
> Registered Office: Nidderdale House, Otley Road, Beckwith Knowle,
> Harrogate HG3 1SA, UK.
>
>
> **
>

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