Dell PowerVault RD1000 User Manual page 27

by Linux, such as FAT32, ext2, and ext3, etc. Refer to the man pages for fdisk and mkfs for detailed

instructions on how to manipulate partition table and create file systems on Linux. If creating multiple

partitions on a cartridge, see topic "Eject" below.



The choice of the file system also has significant impact on backup performance. Ext3 typically

gives the best overall performance.



The FAT32 file system has a 4GB file size limit which can limit archive sizes when using tar.



Some system BIOS do not handle FAT32 formatted disk volumes correctly and may hang on

boot. This typically occurs when USB boot is enabled in the BIOS. See "System Will Not

Complete Boot Process with RD1000 External" section in "Troubleshooting" for more

information.

NOTE: Although mkfs will allow format of un-partitioned media, we recommend always using

fdisk to create partitioned media before formatting. Issues exist with the 2.4 kernel and umount

when using un-partitioned media.

Automount

A cartridge must be mounted to be accessible by the backup application. Some Linux distributions

include pre-configured automount for removable disks, others may require user configuration. Please

refer to the man pages for automount for more information.

Eject

If the cartridge is mounted, the eject button on the RD1000 drive will not work properly. Use the

eject command to un-mount and eject the cartridge.

NOTE: The eject command cannot properly handle un-mount if multiple partitions are present on

a removable disk. Each mounted partition must be un-mounted manually or the eject command

will fail.

Backup With tar

The tar command works with RD1000 drives by writing the archive to a file on the cartridge. Use the

tar -M option to create archives which span multiple cartridges on the RD1000 drive. For spanning

removable disk cartridges use the tar -M -L size option (where size is the cartridge capacity in

kilobytes) when creating multiple-volume backups. For more information refer to the man page for

tar.

Troubleshooting

SCSI Device Status

To find out whether the RD1000 drive is recognized by the system, issue the following command:

cat /proc/scsi/scsi