[Gllug] [bit OT] what block size is best for a tape drive?

[t.clarke]

You will hate me for this  !!
Just searched on google for tape blocks and found an interesting MS article
on tape blocking :

www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/unix/sfu/inxtape.mspx

There seems to be quite a few articles found by google on tape block sizes,
so it looks like its a common 'problem'.  Apparently some unix systems use
fixed 512 physical blocks by default, whereas as other use 0(variable) physical
block sizes be default!

As I understand it,  if you use variable bock size and then write large blocks
you need to know the block size when you read the tape.  Whereas if you use
fixed physical block sizes and largish logical block sizes you need not know
what the block size used by dd/tar etc was when you read.

Tim
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