I have a backup spooling onto a DLT drive. Is there any tool that will let me monitor the data throughput on the device? -- Bowie
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 03:56:36PM -0400, Bowie Bailey wrote:> I have a backup spooling onto a DLT drive. Is there any tool that > will let me monitor the data throughput on the device?Throughput on a tape drive is very variable, depending on how you are writing/reading the data to it. So for some meaningful numbers, you would need your backup solution to provide them. - -- Rodrigo Barbosa "Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur" "Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFEidQupdyWzQ5b5ckRAlDBAJ9egZD3GkWxfhY4o46GdUbk8WikZQCfdCMc 6sTDzZDm7e/R/OaPNv/pf5M=oVDc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:> On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 03:56:36PM -0400, Bowie Bailey wrote: > > I have a backup spooling onto a DLT drive. Is there any tool that > > will let me monitor the data throughput on the device? > > Throughput on a tape drive is very variable, depending on how you are > writing/reading the data to it. > > So for some meaningful numbers, you would need your backup solution > to provide them.I'm just looking for raw bps flowing to the device. I don't really care about compression and such at the moment, I just want a rough idea of what the drive is doing. -- Bowie
Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:> On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 04:15:38PM -0400, Bowie Bailey wrote: > > Rodrigo Barbosa wrote: > > > On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 03:56:36PM -0400, Bowie Bailey wrote: > > > > I have a backup spooling onto a DLT drive. Is there any tool > > > > that will let me monitor the data throughput on the device? > > > > > > Throughput on a tape drive is very variable, depending on how you > > > are writing/reading the data to it. > > > > > > So for some meaningful numbers, you would need your backup > > > solution to provide them. > > > > I'm just looking for raw bps flowing to the device. I don't really > > care about compression and such at the moment, I just want a rough > > idea of what the drive is doing. > > There is no such thing. You "raw bps" will vary greatly depending on > your blocksize and other factors.I don't follow. The backup program is writing data to the device. Regardless of how complex that data stream is, there is a specific amount of data that is transmitted in a given period of time. This would be like sticking a meter inline on an ethernet cable and simply counting bits. There may or may not be a tool to do this and it may or may not be a useful measurement, but it should be possible. -- Bowie
Bowie Bailey wrote:> I have a backup spooling onto a DLT drive. Is there any tool that > will let me monitor the data throughput on the device?Based on all of the conversation this question generated, it sounds like the answer is "no". Interesting discussion, tho. :) Thanks for all the suggestions. -- Bowie
Joshua Gimer wrote:> Bowie Bailey wrote: > > I have a backup spooling onto a DLT drive. Is there any tool that > > will let me monitor the data throughput on the device? > > You can use iostat which is part of the sysstat package. > > yum install sysstat > > You can set up an interval and a count and have it redirected to a > file for later reference > > iostat 10 20 >> filenameNow why didn't I think of that? :) It doesn't appear to be able to show me the tape device directly, but I can get a pretty good idea from watching the disk reads since this system isn't doing anything else at the moment. Thanks. -- Bowie