# Is it possible to simulate a tape device attached to a file in FreeBSD?



## decuser (Aug 7, 2020)

At the risk of causing all kinds of who knows what kind of discussion mayhem, I'd like to know if it's possible? I have this idea in my head that I want to be able to play around with tapes... the only problem is, I don't have any tapes or tape drives for that matter. So, can I attach a file to /dev/mt0 and do tar cv0 myfiles on it or what are my options?

Looking forward to your help .

Will


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## Jose (Aug 7, 2020)

We had proprietary Windows software that could do this at the tape backup software place I worked at 15 years ago. I'm unaware of any free or open options. You can pick up a used LTO1 drive for around $100 nowadays.


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## mark_j (Aug 7, 2020)

decuser said:


> At the risk of causing all kinds of who knows what kind of discussion mayhem, I'd like to know if it's possible? I have this idea in my head that I want to be able to play around with tapes... the only problem is, I don't have any tapes or tape drives for that matter. So, can I attach a file to /dev/mt0 and do tar cv0 myfiles on it or what are my options?
> 
> Looking forward to your help .
> 
> Will



Don't you mean using mt, dump and restore? After all, tar is the same whether the output is to a tape or a drive or a pipe.


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## decuser (Aug 7, 2020)

gpb said:


> Quadstor Virtual Tape Library
> 
> Not sure if this is what you're looking for or not.


That's just crazy! I was thinking generic tape stuff, that's a full blown enterprise solution. Who'd of thunk it? Thanks for the link. I didn't know such a thing existed.


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## decuser (Aug 7, 2020)

mark_j said:


> Don't you mean using mt, dump and restore? After all, tar is the same whether the output is to a tape or a drive or a pipe.


Sure. That's what I meant - basically be able to use the tape related utils with backing files.


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## mark_j (Aug 7, 2020)

decuser said:


> That's just crazy! I was thinking generic tape stuff, that's a full blown enterprise solution. Who'd of thunk it? Thanks for the link. I didn't know such a thing existed.


Yes, even if you haven't thought of it, somebody has. Scary.


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## mark_j (Aug 7, 2020)

decuser said:


> Sure. That's what I meant - basically be able to use the tape related utils with backing files.


Ok, then just use dump with -f - to output to stdout or -f file to output to file. You can pipe dump/restore, of course. Disk cloning used to be the forte of dump piped to restore.
 mt is obviously not usable in that context.


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