The UNIX tar command may also be used to write data to tape. The DAT drive on sand supports DDS-4 densities (20 Gbytes per tape). It is internal to the tower box while the Exabyte is external. On pearl, the DAT drive only supports densities to DDS-2. Both drives on pearl are external. Recall that the raw NIRIM data are in fits format, even though they do not have a “.fits” extension. Type:
· tar -cvf devicename [file, ., or directory names]
The "c" means create a new tar file, "v" means verbose mode, "f" followed by the device name specifies where the tar file should be written. A period means that the current directory is to be written as the tar file. The device name for the Exabyte is /dev/nrsx2 while the device name for the DAT is /dev/nrht0.
NOTE: Do not specify the full path name including the disk name or they will not be readable at other machines. Tar from the directory being saved, or one directory above.
More options are available with the manual entry for tar by typing:
· man tar