If I was to a tape, is there a way to programmatically know when I am nearing, or have hit, the end of the "guaranteed" tape length? I forget if it's 3480 or 3490E tape that guarantees 1100 feet, but if I were writing to a tape, is there a way to find out that I was still under this value?
Our tape duplication service does a tape-to-tape hardware copy, so we cannot have multi-file tapes, so we cannot simply write to EOT and switch to the next tape. We need a way to write EOT within the minimum tape length specification. In particular, I am questioning whether or not I will ever be able to find out if I am still within my minimum specification when I am using IDRC compression. Admittedly, I know very little about what the actual tape looks like when I use compression. Maybe there is a better way to stay within the minimum tape length than to find out how much tape I have written. Any ideas? On either knowing tape length, or my root problem, knowing when to stop writing compressed data to stay within the specification? Thanks! David Logan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
