Tape drive throughput results

[Guest]

I have a quick question on the tape drive tests:-

I have some read/write throughput results reported in MB/s. Can you confirm this means megabytes per second (not megabits per second)?

Thanks

[David (PassMark)]

Yes MB is mega bytes. We are normally fairly careful about making the distinction.

This is the first question about the tape drive test in more than 2 years. We thought that tape drive was dead

[scs102]

Thanks for confirming that.

Yes I use the tape test and it is certainly useful, not only to test that SCSI drives are configured and connected properly, but also read/write performance is adequate.

scs102

[Daniel_Microtest]

We still use the tape drive test on our Windows Servers, however we don't build many of those these days! The test is certainly useful though, so please don't remove it in future releases!!!

[scs102]

Another question: is the reported read/write throughput an average rate or peak rate?

The values measured in MB/s seem to exceed the capability of the tape drive, according to it's own datasheet.

[Ian (PassMark)]

Both are average MB/s for the current file being written or read. It excludes rewind time, writing of a new start file marker (writes), and positioning to the start of a new file (reads). The average is restarted for each new test file.

What values are you getting and what does the drive spec say is the maximum and typical?

Regards,
Ian (PassMark)