Just make a backup of a few large files, recover them into a temporary directory, and compare the recoverds with the originals using cmp -l.
Michael Martinez System Administrator Information Systems and Technology Management CSREES - United States Department of Agriculture (202) 720-6223 > -----Original Message----- > From: Dietmar Goldbeck [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2002 10:20 AM > To: Brian Jonnes > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Testing tapes > > > On Sat, Aug 31, 2002 at 01:45:44PM +0200, Brian Jonnes wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I think I have a faulty tape or two. What is the best > recommended way of > > testing this? Generate a file from /dev/urandom, write it > to the tape and > > md5sum it? > > > > If you use software compression with Amanda, one easy way > would be > > amrecover -c /dev/tape > gzip -tv *.? > > This checks the internal gzip CRC on all files. > > You could also run Amanda without tape, compute the md5sum of all > files on the holding disk, flush them and then recover and compare > md5. > > I personally would not just write one large file, because > the tape might have some special problem ocurring with Amanda > (writing lots of file marks, writing 32k blocks etc.) > > I always used Amanda itself and checked _all_ gzip CRC. > > When testing a new Amanda server/new tape drive > i also do some real restores on to some spare disk and compare m5sums > of the original tree and the restored tree. > > > Also, what is the expected lifetime for Travan 4 tapes > (each used once a > > week)? When should I retire them? > > I don't have experience with travan. My experience with several DDS > and DLT tape drives (and hundreds of tapes) suggests that problems > with more than _only_ _one_ tape are probably problems of the drive > :-(( > > -- > Alles Gute / best wishes > Dietmar Goldbeck E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western > Civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. >