Does changing drive block size impact reading existing tapes

[skrause]

I have read a few posts on here about people resolving performance issues with Backups to Tape jobs where the source files are not local to the tape server by lowering the block size on the drives.

Before I do this, I want to make sure that changing the block size won't impact the ability of the drives to read existing backups from tape in the event that I need to restore.

[rreed]

You might if you're running v9. There's a bug wherein it can bomb out if drive is set for x but tapes are set for xx block size (or even fresh new blank tapes). Contact support for a hotfix, it worked in our case.

[veremin]

Generally speaking, as long as tape drive supports both block sizes (previous, current) there should not be any issues. However, there used to be several known problems with block size functionality in version 9 and version 9 Update 1.

Up to that moment we've created several hot fixes addressing all of them. So, should you come across any issues, don't hesitate to request a hot fix through support ticket.

Thanks.