BAB v9 and DVD drives 3

[mcse924]

I purchased a DVD-RW drive to add to our backup options, but I am unable to configure it with BAB v9. The drive is attached to the server via USB (it's a Plextor drive) and the OS (WIN2K SP4) can "see" the drive, but Arcserve Device Manager does not. This strikes me as very odd, and I hope I am doing something wrong or skipping a step. I have tried using Device Configuration, but that also fails to recognize the DVD drive.

Anyone else using a DVD burner with Arcserve? Does it have to be connected via SCSI? Any assistance is much appreciated.

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[teles]

Hi,
I had something similar happen when I added a DAT tape drive. Netware saw it but AS did not, UNTIL I restarted the software.

Have you tried stopping/starting ArcServe?

 

[mcse924]

Several times. I checked the "certified device" list, and Plextor is not on it. I don't think this means the drive won't work neccesarily, just that CA hasn't tested it. HOWEVER, I went on the CA crappy message board and there was someone on there that had the SAME ISSUE I'm having, but with a SONY DVD drive. SONY is on the CA certified device list. Unfortunately, this person's thread never received a solution to his problem.

Has anyone gotten a USB DVD drive on the "certified" list to work with BAB v9? Do I need to apply a patch?

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[davidmichel]

ARCserve is looking for SCSI devices. Under Windows SCSI, Fibre Channel HBAs, and IDE all show up as SCSI, but USB does not. If you checked you would probably find that there are no USB drives listed.

By the way were is the "CA crappy message board"?

 

[mcse924]

This is backwards thinking on CA's part, but not entirely shcoking. MOST shops have Windows servers with CDROMs built in. Not many will go out of their way to rip out the CD rom drive inside, and replace with an internal DVD burner, probably not worth the hassle. But MOST shops, like us, will purchase an external Firewire or USB DVD burner, just to move to newer technology, with better capacity, and fill a gap with regards to backup needs.

Now you look at the BAB v9 marketing brochures, and of course they mention support for DVD and CDRW drives, but nothing about SCSI, USB, or any limitations therein. I really HATE CA!!!!

The crappy message board is located at

http://forums.ca.com/disclaimer.html

I only use it when I can't find something good on Tek-tips, for the most part, it's worthless.

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[davidmichel]

Well ...

A few things to consider.

The Tape Engine moves data and media via SCSI commands. The drivers for IDE and Fibre support those commands. USB is totaly different and would require a totaly new Tape Engine.

The SCSI standard is world wide providing a standard way to identify devices and move data and media, supporting a large range of devices including single drives and libraries.

USB is great, but it's made for personal use. For now USB is not supporting libraries. Small clients buy single drives for backups, buy BAB via channel (if they buy it at all usually they buy nothing), and only buy support when the have to.

 

[mcse924]

I received confirmation from CA, they do not support USB. Thanks for the explanation, I knew it had something to with one of the engines/services not written to recognize USB (unintentionally?).

I disagree with one statement. USB 2 and Firewire are NOT necessarily for personal use anymore. The speeds are pretty good, and they do serve a purpose for smaller "enterprise" customers like myself.

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[Cyklops]

Maybe I'm all wrong with this but with a CD/RW configured for 'packet writing' (like Adaptec's DirectCD) you can use ARCserve's backup to disk (file system device) for back up and restore operations. With backup to disk it doesn't matter whether the drive is SCSI, IDE, USB, firewire, local or remote because it is used as a virtual tape drive. Isn't this the same with DVD/RW ??

regards

 

[davidmichel]

Cyklops great idea!

I agree if the DVDRW is seen as just another disk and can be written to as such a backup to FSD should work.

How about it mcse924? Try it out and let us know how it works.

 

[mcse924]

AWESOME work around. I will try it a let you know. I can't see why it would not work.

I guess 3 heads are better than one...

THANKS

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[mcse924]

IT WORKS!!!! 600MB in 20 minutes - respectable speeds.

The only thing to remember is to format the media so that it is able to accept data. I used the Roxio "Drag to disc" program to enable packet writing, and format the media. I don't think you can format the media using Arcserve.

THANK YOU THANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOUTHANK YOU

Carpe diem, procrastination is the thief of time...

 

[Cyklops]

You should be able to use the format and erase commands with ARCserve just the same as you do with tapes.

 

[davidmichel]

mcse924 is correct in that ARCserve will not be able to format it. That goes back to the begining of the thread were ARCserve does not see it because it is USB attached.