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I need to archive about 30TB of data from a NAS RAID machine. The machine runs CentOS 5. It has a 3ware 9750-41 card with a single external SAS SFF-8088 connector. The LTO 6 external drives from both Quantum and HP come with this type of cable.

Given that the card is also controlling the hard drives, can I just plug the tape drive into it and expect to enter tar c or do I need to add a dedicated card for the tape drive?

The NAS is in use 24/7, so I am looking for a solution that does not require shutdown/reboot.

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I wouldn't use a 3ware controller for tape purposes. There's no indication it's even possible with the controller you're working with: 3ware 9750-4i4e.

I would use a dedicated LSI SAS HBA with an external SFF-8088 connector (or an HP-branded version of the same). This is mainly for history of use... it's a stable combination.

Now, there are deeper questions about what you're archiving and whether tar is the right approach to handle it, but yeah...

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  • I would prefer to not have to power it down and take the cover off. The LSI 3DM2 web interface allows me to create "units". Seems like the tape drive would be another unit with some type other than RAID.
    – Bob
    Commented Feb 15, 2015 at 1:43
  • Sorry? I'm not sure what to say to that. There's no indication that the 3ware controller supports tape drives. Doing the right thing will probably involve turning the server off because you'll have to add a controller to support the tape drive. If you can't get the requisite downtime, then tape backups won't be possible.
    – ewwhite
    Commented Feb 15, 2015 at 1:58
  • Backup is certainly possible. The data could be moved a couple TB at a time through the network to another machine that can be brought down in order to install the HBA. Putting the extra data on the network will slow some other operations down, but at least won't stop anything
    – Bob
    Commented Feb 15, 2015 at 2:08
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The answer is that a single card cannot run RAID and tape at the same time. I called LSI tech support and they actually pick up the phone if you can believe it. The 9750 card could be re-flashed for tape, but then it would not run RAID. In my case, I bought a 9200-8E HBA to run the HP tape drive. On the CentOS 5 operating system it was recognized at boot without any configuration as /dev/st0. tar works as expected so long as the user is in the disk group and the file is given as /dev/st0.

LSI has a reflashing live CD/USB iso at : http://mycusthelp.info/LSI/_cs/AnswerDetail.aspx?&inc=8278

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