Re: [tlug] DDS-1 tape date

["Larry Stanbery" <lstanber@example.com>]

patrick.niessen@example.com said:
> can someone tell me which command can give me the date when a DDS1 tape
> was written to?

As I seem to recall, tapes don't store write/modify dates, but simply
record data sent to them (they're streaming block devices, after all).  If
you're in a bind to find out when a tape was made, and you trust that your
timestamps on your system are all "valid" (not necessarily a good
assumption), you could dump the tape to a scratch disk, preserving the
modify timestamps, and then recursively find the "newest" modify
timestamp.

My typical tape creation procedure is to use a non-rewind device
(/dev/nst0) to write tars/dumps.  I "touch" a file named for the date
(15Jun2004, e.g.), tar that to the tape, then start my tape writing. 
Later, I un-tar the tape to see the date stamp (again, using /dev/nst0),
then I can proceed with my archive retrival process.

Of course, I could be wrong, eh? =)

Larry