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LinearTapeFileSystem / ltfs

Reference implementation of the LTFS format Spec for stand alone tape drive
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
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Question about support for SimplyPro LTO-9 single unit #359

Closed DavidValin closed 2 years ago

DavidValin commented 2 years ago

Hello

I am new to LTO and LTFS world, so forgive my ignorance. I am trying to evaluate using LTO tapes (LTFS) and found a nice tape drive for LTO-9 but I am not sure if its supported with this toolkit. https://tapes.nl/product/symplypro-lto-desktop-thunderbolt-3-hh-lto-9/

Isn't the api to talk with the tape drives the same for all of them? Isn't LTFS a standard used across all devices?

If not, why wouldn't it be compatible with this drive for example?

I am just trying to use the LTFS filesystem with this unit in anything that is not Mac or Windows, no fancy stuff, just mount the tape as a drive, write and read from it

piste-jp commented 2 years ago

Your questions are not clear to me. May be, you and I am not in the same page. So I would like to start from the beginning.

First of all, you might not be able to see any changes in your system when you connect a LTO drive to your system except only one device is added into your system. (You can't see any drive icon on your desktop or somewhere.)

Once you connected a LTO drive in your system, a device file /dev/sg? is added on your machine in Linux or device entry is added on the 'system report' in Mac. This "device" on the system shall be used from one of application for tape like tar command. (It is quite deferent from the disk...)

LTFS is one of software to use LTO drive on system. So LTFS requires target drive is detcted on the system before using it. This drive detection problem is not a scope of this LTFS project at all. It just use a tape device detected by the system.

I am just trying to use the LTFS filesystem with this unit in anything that is not Mac or Windows, no fancy stuff, just mount the tape as a drive, write and read from it

LTFS is not a S/W that runs within a tape device at all. You need to connect the drive to the system (Linux or Mac) and run the LTFS S/W on that system. (For windows, the code in this project does not support it. Use other vendor's LTFS with supported drives.)

DavidValin commented 2 years ago

So is it correct to say that LTFS is a file system and this is standard in the market, and this "ltfs" project is a toolkit that implements the api to talk to this LTFS filesystem? Why does it state the tape drives supported in the README then? I dont understand....

So to use this specific drive I would need to find a specific driver for this specific drive in linux, and once I have the /dev/sg? device available this ltfs project is going to be able to format, read and write files as a "normal" folder in the mounted device using LTFS filesystem?

piste-jp commented 2 years ago

Why does it state the tape drives supported in the README then?

Basically, there are only 3 vendors who supply LTO drives in the market basically, IBM, HP and Quantum. Other vendors might purchase the drives from one (or more) vendor (OEM) and integrate it to their product. So I believe the drive itself is provided from IBM, HP or Quantum.

The list in the README states the drives only provided from original vendors. Because we don't have enough money and time to confirm all "LTO" vase product in the world.

DavidValin commented 2 years ago

I really appreciate your time and answers. So what I understood is that in theory it should be detected but it has not been validated by your team. I still need to check if I need a specific driver to make the device available. I will write here when I know if I managed to make it work with this repo.

Thanks a lot!!