Tape Redirector Hyper-V 2016 and LTO-7 Blocksize

escargot76 · Wed Apr 08, 2020 8:48 am

Hi,
can you tell me which parameter i have to adjust to get an bigger blocksize.
Following testing-environment:
-)Hyper-V 2016
-)vm with ubuntu server 19
-)Neo Superloader T24 attached with SAS HBA on Hyper-V 2016 server
-)Starwind Tape Redirector v8 latest ver. installed on Hyper-V 2016 server

iscsi-Connection to Neo-Superloader under vm ubuntu server works great. But backup-Programm tells me that the default blocksize of LTO-7 is limited to 1024.
With that blocksize i get max speed of 150-160MB/s.

But LTO-7 directly attached to a physical ubuntu server with blocksize=4096 has max speed of 250-260MB/s. So LTO-7 can have a much higher blocksize with phyiscal connection and not redirection.

if i try to increase the blocksize in ubuntu vm to 4096 i get i/o errors of the iscsi-redirector.

So how can i increase the blocksize in Tape Redirector?

Wed Apr 08, 2020 12:04 pm

Hi,

1. Could you tell me which exactly errors you encountered?
2. You cannot tune it in Tape Redirector directly. Try tuning blocksize for the initiator. See here for more details https://forums.starwindsoftware.com/vie ... 089&p=9871. Here we discuss how to do that on Windows. Maybe, Linux has something similar.

escargot76 · Wed Apr 08, 2020 9:31 pm

Hi,
following error on Ubuntu side if blocksize of LTO-7 is over 1024k:
Apr 8 20:55:01 bareos kernel: [ 213.462452] st 1:0:0:1: [st0] Sense Key : Illegal Request [current]
Apr 8 20:55:01 bareos kernel: [ 213.462456] st 1:0:0:1: [st0] Add. Sense: Logical unit failure

Backup-System is Bareos installed on Ubuntu:

Logging in Tape Redirector tells following:
..….
4/8 22:51:48.069428 2228 C[9], IN_LOGIN: iScsiConnection::doTransition: Event - LOGIN_ACCEPT.
4/8 22:51:48.107549 2228 PR: ResLunSessionEngine::returnUnitAttention: UA 0x2907 returned to opcode 0x1a for session 0x9 from iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:fb985a368f96,00023D000001.
4/8 22:51:48.388521 2228 PR: ResLunSessionEngine::returnUnitAttention: UA 0x2907 returned to opcode 0x0 for session 0x9 from iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:fb985a368f96,00023D000001.
4/8 22:55:01.794666 2228 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#sequential&ven_ibm&prod_ultrium-hh7#5&239e6fdf&0&000900#{53f5630b-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': ***iScsiSptiDevice::scsiPassThrough: (SPTI) DeviceIoControl failed with error 87!
4/8 22:55:01.794769 2228 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#sequential&ven_ibm&prod_ultrium-hh7#5&239e6fdf&0&000900#{53f5630b-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': iScsiSptiDevice::dispatch: scsiPassThrough failed: The parameter is incorrect. (code: 87).
4/8 22:55:01.794781 2228 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#sequential&ven_ibm&prod_ultrium-hh7#5&239e6fdf&0&000900#{53f5630b-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': iScsiSptiDevice::dispatch: IOCTL_SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_DIRECT (before):
4/8 22:55:01.794791 2228 SPTI:
0000 38 00 00 00 00 00 06 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 8......@...... .
0010 e0 a5 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 90 af a5 01 00 00 à¥.......à¯¥...
0020 38 00 00 00 0a 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 8..... .........
0030 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0040 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0050 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0060 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0070 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
4/8 22:55:01.794803 2228 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#sequential&ven_ibm&prod_ultrium-hh7#5&239e6fdf&0&000900#{53f5630b-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': iScsiSptiDevice::dispatch: IOCTL_SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_DIRECT (after):
4/8 22:55:01.794810 2228 SPTI:
0000 38 00 00 00 00 00 06 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 8......@...... .
0010 e0 a5 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 90 af a5 01 00 00 à¥.......à¯¥...
0020 38 00 00 00 0a 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 8..... .........
0030 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0040 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0050 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0060 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0070 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

tape redirector uses this autochanger and LTO7:
4/8 22:51:48.064685 2160 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#changer&ven_bdt&prod_flexstor_ii#5&239e6fdf&0&000901#{53f56310-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': iScsiSptiDevice::processParams: share: 0 ('').
4/8 22:51:48.065361 2160 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#changer&ven_bdt&prod_flexstor_ii#5&239e6fdf&0&000901#{53f56310-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': iScsiSptiDevice::updateDeviceIds: DeviceType 8, VendorId 'BDT ', ProductId 'FlexStor II ', ProductRevision '5.60', SerialNumber '00DE64105289_LL0', BusType 10.
4/8 22:51:48.065385 2160 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#changer&ven_bdt&prod_flexstor_ii#5&239e6fdf&0&000901#{53f56310-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': iScsiSptiDevice::openDevice: 'BDT FlexStor II 5.60': adapter 0, bus 0, target 9, LUN 1; maxTransferLength 16777215, alignmentMask 0x0
4/8 22:51:48.065406 2160 PR: ResLunSessionEngine::registerSession: LUN 0: existing record for session 0x9 from iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:fb985a368f96,00023D000001
4/8 22:51:48.065424 2160 PR: ResLunSession::setUnitAttention: Set UA 0x2907 (0x0) for session 0x9 from iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:fb985a368f96,00023D000001.
4/8 22:51:48.065437 2160 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#sequential&ven_ibm&prod_ultrium-hh7#5&239e6fdf&0&000900#{53f5630b-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': iScsiSptiDevice::processParams: share: 0 ('').
4/8 22:51:48.068958 2160 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#sequential&ven_ibm&prod_ultrium-hh7#5&239e6fdf&0&000900#{53f5630b-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': iScsiSptiDevice::updateDeviceIds: DeviceType 1, VendorId 'IBM ', ProductId 'ULTRIUM-HH7 ', ProductRevision 'K4K1', SerialNumber '10WT124091', BusType 10.
4/8 22:51:48.068991 2160 SPTI: '\\?\scsi#sequential&ven_ibm&prod_ultrium-hh7#5&239e6fdf&0&000900#{53f5630b-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}': iScsiSptiDevice::openDevice: 'IBM ULTRIUM-HH7 K4K1': adapter 0, bus 0, target 9, LUN 0; maxTransferLength 16777215, alignmentMask 0x0
4/8 22:51:48.069006 2160 PR: ResLunSessionEngine::registerSession: LUN 1: existing record for session 0x9 from iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:fb985a368f96,00023D000001
4/8 22:51:48.069017 2160 PR: ResLunSession::setUnitAttention: Set UA 0x2907 (0x0) for session 0x9 from iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:fb985a368f96,00023D000001.
4/8 22:51:48.069027 2160 Tgt: iScsiTarget::openSession: open 'iqn.2008-08.com.starwindsoftware:mcp.leiss.local-neoseries-tapechanger': 1 session(s) opened, 65535 more allowed.

i don't think that i can tune the initiator:
i want to know why 1024k Blocksize works with tape redirector and 2048k or 4096k doesn't. From where comes that limit of 1024k?

Any hint?

Thu Apr 09, 2020 11:33 am

I guess it comes from Ubuntu itself https://askubuntu.com/questions/641900/ ... size-works I think.
One more time, you cannot tune block size in Tape Redirector.