On Wednesday 23 October 2002 03:10, Joseph Sirucka wrote:
>Hi All
>
>I would like to know where and what do I insert into the
> amanda.conf for allow tape compression to work.
>
>the tape unit is a hp1537A in a six stacker based unit.
>
>regards
>
>Joseph

That part is already in the amanda.conf file Joseph.

The choice that controls when amanda will use it is made in the file 
"disklist" by your choice of which of the backup profiles contained 
in amanda.conf it is to use for each entry.

This next is something you may not have considered.

Generally speaking, its not a good idea to mix the use of 
compression by amanda with the use of hardware compression in the 
drive.  And since amanda's compression can usually shrink things 
better than the drives hardware can, albeit at the expense of time 
to do the compression in software, most prefer to turn off the 
drives compression and use amanda choices exclusively if their 
machine has the horsepower.

That drive probably has the ability to turn the compression back on 
even if the dip switches on it are set to disable it.  It does this 
by reading a hidden header on the tape everytime a different tape 
is inserted, and if the tape was ever recorded with the compression 
turned on, then its very difficult to turn it off when reusing that 
tape again.  Amanda by herself cannot do it, although it would be a 
nice feature to have.  (hint hint)

I've related a method that I've used many times several times 
previously on this list, so if thats a problem for you, look back 
thru the archives & see if you can find it.  If not, give us 
another yelp for help. :-)

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP@1400mhz  512M
99.18% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly