Tape-drive Hardware and Data Loss Protection

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.2 supports a variety of tape-drive hardware, primarily those that adhere to standard interfaces. The supported types include:

• SCSI Tape Drives: RHEL 9.2 includes the st device driver for SCSI tape drives, which is supplied as a separate module. These devices are typically represented as /dev/stX for rewinding devices and /dev/nstX for non-rewinding devices.
• Fibre Channel (FC) Tape Drives: Tape drives connected via Fibre Channel interfaces are supported, utilizing the appropriate drivers for FC hardware.
• USB Tape Drives: USB-connected tape drives that conform to standard USB mass storage protocols are generally supported.
• SATA Tape Drives: Tape drives connected through SATA interfaces are supported, provided they adhere to standard protocols.

It's important to note that while RHEL 9.2 provides support for these types of tape drives, compatibility with specific models depends on adherence to standard protocols and the availability of appropriate drivers. For optimal performance and compatibility, it's recommended to consult the hardware compatibility list (HCL) provided by Red Hat or the tape drive manufacturer to ensure support for your specific hardware model. Additionally, RHEL 9.2 offers tools for managing tape devices, such as the `mt` utility for controlling magnetic tape drive operations. The `mt-st` package, which includes the `mt` utility, can be installed using the package manager:

sudo dnf install mt-st

This utility allows you to perform various tape operations, including rewinding, ejecting, and checking the status of the tape drive. For detailed information on managing tape devices in RHEL 9.2, refer to the official Red Hat documentation.

Linux supports tape drives for use as backup devices. The common types of tape-drive hardware are:

1. SCSI: Small Computer Systems Interface is a standard for connecting peripherals to your computer via a standard hardware interface.
2. ATAPI/IDE: ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface) is a standard for connecting CD-ROM and tape backup drives to your computer via a standard hardware interface, and is part of the Enhanced IDE. Generally, IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) is used as an interface to address hard disk drives.
3. "Floppy" tape drives

SCSI tape drives are in use in most commercial settings. These drives are usually DAT (Digital Audio Tape) or Digital Data Storage (DDS) drives. ATAPI/IDE drives include tape drives and other sorts of ATAPI devices (such as Iomega drives) that can be attached to the IDE interface. Remember that there is a maximum of four IDE devices per controller. If you are adding IDE hard drives and CD-ROM drives, you need to consider this limitation and install additional controllers if necessary.

Linux also supports tape devices such as the QIC-80^[1] that connect using a system's floppy controller. The next lesson describes tape control commands.

Question: Can you try the intensely laborious and annoying test of ensuring all the tape drives are loaded up with media and try the

devbra --dev

command please?
Answer: Yes drives are visible when we execute lsscsi command, but the same number of tape drives are not visible when we execute devbra command only few tap drives are visible even if we loaded the medias on all the tape drives.

[1]QIC-80: QIC 80 is a tape standard that can be used to determine which tapes or devices will work with a particular operating system or backup utility.