BE 9.1, Win2k, Tape Library, Maybe I expect too much

[birdson]

Greetings,
I have a Win2k server running BE 9.1 with a SCSI attached Dell PV132T SDLT library. The library has 2 SDLT320 drives. When I create a job to backup my domain, (about 9 servers) I expected the job to run sets on both drives, however, I find that what is happening is the entire job runs on a single drive. I have created a drive pool, rebuilt the job with the pool as the device, still only one drive.
The basics have been checked, all firmware and drivers are current and match documented specs on both Dell and Veritas' sites. The library is functioning properly, all devices are present in device mangler and the devices tab of BE, and function properly when explicitly targeted for a job. I found a reference on Veritas' site about a problem with the Library Expansion Option, so I applied the fix, and made sure the option was installed. I'm at a loss. I want a single job to run across both drives, then upon completion be duplicated to a single tape for off-site archival. Am I expecting too much?

 

[SQLBill]

I don't think you can set it to do what you want. Here's the way I see the issue:


Veritas (as I see it) is set to: ooppps the tape in drive 1 is full, I don't need it any more, so eject it and get another. Oh, the drive is empty, so I'll put the new tape in there.

-SQLBill

 

[sanhman]

Have a look at cascade drive pools,
This will group drives with the same model and firmware.
This will remove the drives from any other pools.

then select Jobsetup and click on create a duplicate backup

 

[steveot]

Cascade drive pool will use the first drive and fill up one tape then move to the next drive and fill that up. No concurrent operations can be performed on a cascade drive pool. Normal drive pool is for redundancy or submitting multiple jobs to the drive pool. Jobs will use whatever drive is free.
You can create New Job to duplicate backup sets - after a job has run to perfor your last steps.

 

[birdson]

After an incredible amount of time, I have to concur with the above findings. A single backup job will NOT utilize both drives by intelligently splitting the sets of the job across the 2 drives. I split the job myself into 2 roughly equal jobs, explicitly targeted at each drive. Then set the duplicate jobs to use a different media set and defined the source drive and destination drives explicitly in both duplicate jobs. The end result being, my backups run each night to 2 tapes. Then the duplicate jobs consolidate the 2 jobs to a single tape and export it so I can just snag it out of the portal in the AM and send it off-site. I never thought I would say this, but I miss this one feature/capability from Legato. I am mostly satisfied with this solution, now if I could just get my ISA server to stay online through an entire backup cycle, but that's another forum.

Thanks for the help,
birdson

 

[LaChimere]

Hi to all. Its just not supported by veritas. Dont forget veritas is now from Net Backup. If you want, you will need to use net backup in order to be able to use your 2 heads at the same time!

Sorry!

 

[Rols]

Heh, I wished I read this post earlier. I could have saved you alot of trouble.

Backup Exec does not support a single stream to multiple drives. The only way to achieve this is to have multiple backups running concurrently.

Sounds like you are in need a more enterprise product such as Netbackup or Networker.

Cheers