Writing to Tape Drive Multiple Times using tar command

Question

I am using the command

    tar -cvfE $TAPE_DRIVE $BACKUP_FILE

to write to tape for the first time. It works like a charm.

BUT, when there is already a file in the tape (older backup) I use the command

    tar -rvfE $TAPE_DRIVE $BACKUP_FILE

which disappoints every time.

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There is enough space on the tape (1.3TB).

I am only writing 80-90GB files at a time.

The tape is mounted locally.

After failing to write to tape if I try to list files on tape, i get the old (first) file that I wrote to it.

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Is there any other command I should be using?

Answer 1

Apparently the native tar commands is not perfect and has bugs. It is recommended that using -i (ignore directory checksum errors) flag will resolve this but it did not in my case.

Using GNU tar solved my problem. Simply use gtar instead of tar and it works like a charm. So the commands are like

gtar -cvf $TAPE_DRIVE $BACKUP_FILE

and

gtar -rvf $TAPE_DRIVE $BACKUP_FILE