I am the proud owner of a Quantum Superload 3, with a HP LTO-4 drive. The host connectivity is by SCSI, which I’ve never really had to use before. The following is the tale of me getting it to work.

SCSI Controller

The SCSI Controller I have is an QLogic card and shows up in lspci as follows:

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07:04.0 SCSI storage controller: QLogic Corp. ISP10160 Single Channel Ultra3 SCSI Processor (rev 06)
07:05.0 SCSI storage controller: QLogic Corp. ISP10160 Single Channel Ultra3 SCSI Processor (rev 06)

This works with the qla1280 driver in the Linux kernel. When I first loaded the module, the host did not show up under /sys/class/scsi_Host. After looking at the logs, it became apparent that I needed a firmware images.

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Oct 17 18:05:13 prosser kernel: [   17.900381] Failed to load image "qlogic/12160.bin" err -2
Oct 17 18:05:13 prosser kernel: [   17.900424] scsi(5): initialize: pci probe failed!
Oct 17 18:05:13 prosser kernel: [   17.900461] qla1x160: Failed to initialize adapter
Oct 17 18:05:13 prosser kernel: [   17.900561] qla1280 0000:07:05.0: PCI INT A disabled

Debian provides the correct firmware in the non-free repo under the package firmware-qlogic

After installing the firmware and reloading the driver, the Controller worked as expected. Remember that modprobe fails silently if the module is already loaded.

The Library

Once the SCSI controller was up and running, both the drive and the changer are visible.

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# lsscsi -g
[1:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      Corsair Force 3  5.02  /dev/sda   /dev/sg0
[5:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      SAMSUNG HD103UJ  1AA0  /dev/sdb   /dev/sg1
[6:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      SAMSUNG HD103SJ  1AJ1  /dev/sdc   /dev/sg2
[7:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      WDC WD10EADS-00L 01.0  /dev/sdd   /dev/sg3
[8:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      WDC WD10EADS-11M 01.0  /dev/sde   /dev/sg4
[9:0:0:0]    disk    ATA      Hitachi HDS72101 JP4O  /dev/sdf   /dev/sg5
[10:0:0:0]   disk    ATA      WDC WD10EADS-00L 01.0  /dev/sdg   /dev/sg6
[11:0:5:0]   tape    HP       Ultrium 4-SCSI   B35Z  /dev/st0   /dev/sg7
[11:0:5:1]   mediumx QUANTUM  UHDL             0061  /dev/sch0  /dev/sg8

The -g option outputs the scsi generic device file name in the last column. This is useful for manipulating the changer later.

I’ve confirmed I can write a read to a tape using the HP tape drive at /dev/st0. Remember that /dev/stX auto-rewinds and /dev/nstX does not.

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root@prosser ~
# find test
test
test/hello.txt
root@prosser ~
# tar -czf /dev/st0 test
root@prosser ~
# rm -r test
root@prosser ~
# tar -xvzf /dev/st0 test
test/
test/hello.txt

I can also interrogate the contents of the library using mtx. This has to be done using the generic SCSI device. i.e. /dev/sg8, /dev/sch0 will not work.

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root@prosser ~
# export CHANGER=/dev/sg8
root@prosser ~
# mtx status
  Storage Changer /dev/sg8:1 Drives, 8 Slots ( 0 Import/Export )
Data Transfer Element 0:Full (Storage Element 6 Loaded):VolumeTag = NDD311L3                        
      Storage Element 1:Empty
      Storage Element 2:Empty
      Storage Element 3:Empty
      Storage Element 4:Empty
      Storage Element 5:Empty
      Storage Element 6:Empty
      Storage Element 7:Empty
      Storage Element 8:Full :VolumeTag=NDD312L3