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Retro 5 hangs on big movie files to DAT


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Hi

 

Recently upgraded to 5 on a G4 450 OS 9.2.2 backing up to a LACIE DAT-STOL-DDS5GB.

 

1 ----

 

If the backup to DAT includes one or more large movie files (1 Gb +) it is prone to getting so far and then apparently sitting at the same spot ad infinitum. The turning cursor continues, but nothing seems to be happening.

 

No errors reported. Apparently no disc problems or tape problems because collections of smaller files (hundreds of Mb) on the same discs and to the same tape go through fine. I have tried leaving it in this state for hours, but it never comes out. If I click STOP it asks "really ?", then says it's stopping, but never comes out of that either. Only way to get out of these situations is to force quit, restart, and repair the catalogue. On one or two occasions it has frozen the Mac.

 

I can normally predict when this is likely to happen - if the performance figure is somewhere between 40 Mb/min and 60 Mb/min it's usually a good sign - if it's in excess of 70 Mb/min I can expect things to grind to a halt at some point. On occasion it has started off with a performance figure of 90 to 100 Mb/min ! - which is pretty impressive for DAT - but sadly doesn't come through.

 

I've tried allocating various amounts of RAM to retro 5 from the way it comes to 100 megs. Doesn't seem to make a scrap of difference.

 

2 --------

 

When restoring a single text file of 3k it spent 15 minutes doing a sort of "rewind-fast forward-rewind" cycle before finally succeeding. It does something similar when retrieving loads of individual image files of about 1 Mb each. Doing one of these "whirry" cycles for each file. Took AGES. But it doesn't ALWAYS happen. On the same tape it will suddenly stop happening and performance will soar from 5 Mb/min to 50 or better and everything smooths out for a while. Sounds suspiciously like dirty heads but I use a cleaner tape regularly and the heads aren't very old - been in use for only a couple of months.

 

Has anyone got any suggestions please ? The first prob with large movie files is the most pressing as it seems impossible to back them up. I can live with the other if I have to.

 

I'm living in hopeful anticipation !

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In case anyone else has been getting this problem it seems to have been sorted as follows :

 

I remembered that in the distant past DAT drives needed to be either first or last on the SCSI chain - and in some cases at a very particular location in 3D space ! My Retro 4 preferred to have the DAT first in the chain. I thought I'd try a bit of SCSI Voodoo and see what happened moving the DAT to last in the chain. It seems that retro 5 likes this better - it works - at least for the moment ...!!

 

Voodoo...

 

...Who do ?...

 

...we all do...

 

...

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