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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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Best HBAs and drives to use with LTFS #442

Closed z3cko closed 4 months ago

z3cko commented 7 months ago

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I was using LTFS in the past with mixed results. While ca. 3 years ago everything was working as expected, I cannot use tapes created back then because of read errors. I had a different controller then, but would also definitely buy a suggested controller which works 100%.

Describe the solution you'd like

Please, can we have a list of suggested HBAs so we can use LTFS properly? What is everyone here using successfully?

Thanks for any pointer!

DarrenPIngram commented 7 months ago

"Please, can we have a list of suggested HBAs so we can use LTFS properly? What is everyone here using successfully?" I guess it would be interesting and people could push PRs to update. I honestly don't remember mine, it was some Chinese product from Amazon Germany. The so-called flashed Dell card I had before never seemed to like the system.

piste-jp commented 7 months ago

Compatibility verification between drive and HBA is out-of-scope of this project.

Drive vendors might provide supported HBA lists on their web site. Please use a HBA the vendor recommends or they are saying 'supported'.

I described a few HBAs I confirmed on my bench below, but it is impossible to list all supported HBAs here without any contribution from others on both work time and money.

https://github.com/LinearTapeFileSystem/ltfs/wiki/HBA-info

DarrenPIngram commented 7 months ago

On 2024-03-25 03:28, Atsushi Abe wrote:

Compatibility verification between drive and HBA is out-of-scope of this project. Yes, I - at least - don't think there was any expectation on you / the project to start validating. Whether any space in the docs/wiki for user-submitted reports (and maybe a "call out" for contributions) would reduce the support burden (!) and/or help users at large I can't say.

piste-jp commented 7 months ago

@DarrenPIngram ,

Thank you for your suggestion. Where is the best place you think?

I think the repository and Wiki on this project is not good places. What is your suggestion about the place?

DarrenPIngram commented 6 months ago

I think the repository and Wiki on this project is not good places. What is your suggestion about the place?

I do not know, nor would speculate on the amount of use it might get by contributors, but personally I feel it would be good to have kept it within the project - and perhaps reducing the workload to yourself - for both visibility and credibility.

I am not familiar with the user's use of Wiki here on Github, but could there be scope even for a new "branch" and people could submit PRs to a specific page or pages? I don't know the back-end's granularity for permissions, but I could see you would not want it in the "code's branch".

At least this way there is one location, it is under your nominal oversight and thus could be removed if you felt it was distracting or being somehow misused, and the risk is less that something on super-dooper-host.com doesn't disappear and get redirected to a domain you would not want this project associated with.

Maybe other community members could give some more helpful insight?

piste-jp commented 6 months ago

I am not familiar with the user's use of Wiki here on Github, but could there be scope even for a new "branch" and people could submit PRs to a specific page or pages? I don't know the back-end's granularity for permissions, but I could see you would not want it in the "code's branch".

The Wiki on GH doesn't have any "branch" at all and it doesn't have any function to correspond with an issue like code change. It just holds documents and only project member can modify them. So I think Wiki is not a good place, because one of the members need to modify anyway.

The point is how to maintain the list without workload of the members in this project. Because I'm not sure it is really valuable for this project. The main statement is "Please use a HBA the vendor recommends or they are saying 'supported'.". We don't want to recommend any 3rd-party HBAs that is not supported by the tape drive vendors...

DarrenPIngram commented 6 months ago

On 2024-04-23 08:20, Atsushi Abe wrote:

The Wiki on GH doesn't have any "branch" at all and it doesn't have any function to correspond with an issue like code change. It just holds documents and only project member can modify them. So I think Wiki is not a good place, because one of the members need to modify anyway. Ah, thank you for the clarification.

The point is how to maintain the list. I'm not sure it is really valuable for this project. The main statement is "Please use a HBA the vendor recommends or they are saying 'supported'.". We don't want to recommend any 3rd-party HBAs that is not supported by the tape drive vendors... I guess -- at least -- I have not noticed that many messages asking about HBAs so maybe it is not a great problem and thus spending time looking for a solution of a (non)-problem is not valuable.

I can just see, maybe enthusiasts who don't have company access to the latest and greatest hardware AND also vendor support in general being a small (?) group here, and it was them I was thinking about in case they've decided to jump into the LTO world, maybe pick up a cheap (no longer that cheap!) working LTO on eBay and then scramble to figure it out. And then discover your wonderful project that I benefit from myself! (If there was a donate link I'd happily test it works -- even if it gives you a warm drink or several as a token of appreciation.)

In the expectation that it is a low-demand "feature", could it even be a case of leaving one "mega thread" post in the "issues" tab, made clear it is not necessarily "official" in terms of recommendations and support, but then any interested parties could post their working set ups if they so desire? Inelegant maybe, but better than nothing. Otherwise, I would tend to suggest it not beneficial discovering, signposting and (someone) maintaining an off-GH location.

piste-jp commented 6 months ago

Thank you for your quick response.

How about this.

  1. Create a page on the Wiki on this project
  2. The page has a description like "Official HBA support information is provided from each vendor. Please use the HBA listed in the official support list provided from each tape drive vendor. The list here is unofficial list that LTFS users confirms they are working on their environment. The LTFS project never provides any guarantee."
  3. Create a issue template for providing HBA data
  4. Anyone can open an issue for providing HBA data
  5. Project member update the page on the Wiki based on the issue and close it after updating the page
DarrenPIngram commented 6 months ago

On 2024-04-23 09:34, Atsushi Abe wrote:

How about this. (snip)

Sure, but that creates more work for the project's members (even though I doubt you will get dozens of submissions a week). If you feel that such would not distract from the core work of the project, certainly I see it there as a good solution AND it can be pointed to if someone misses it and asks in "issues" about X...

D

piste-jp commented 6 months ago

OK. Start from that for now.

Let's see what will happen.

piste-jp commented 6 months ago

I prepared the page on Wiki and the report template on the repository.

See https://github.com/LinearTapeFileSystem/ltfs/wiki/Confirmed-HBA-list.

piste-jp commented 4 months ago

Close this because there is no activity long time.

Please feel free to reopen if something new is found.