Exabyte EZ17 with Mammoth 2 Drive

[jasonalden]

I would like to get in touch with anyone else using an Exabyte EZ17 with Mammoth 2 tape drive and share notes.

I have an Exabyte EZ17 with Mammoth 2 tape drive. I have been struggling for over a year trying to stabilize this backup system.

Yesterday was the 3rd time our drive was deemed as needing service by Exabyte tech support. We are now in the process of RMAing and hopefully will receive a replacement drive within a week or so (yeah right). I have spent hundreds of hours reinstalling drivers, changing cables, testing tapes, using M2 Monitor to capture dump upon dump from the drive, etc....

I would like to get in touch with anyone else using an Exabyte EZ17 with Mammoth 2 tape drive and share notes. I have much much documentation about all of the struggles I have gone through.

My latest problems are documented here, online, to facilitate knowledge-sharing:

http://aldentechnology.com/work/200405-BackupExec/

Thanks for your interest.

Jason Alden
jason($%^77^NOSPAM)alden@yahoo.com

 

[shellac]

Ditch the M2's!!!!
I had to deal with the same thing you're dealing with for almost 3 years (notice, the libraries\drives didn't even last 3 years!!) with 2 430M libraries and 2 M2 drives in each. Same SH*T your dealing with. Go to

http://www.sysopt.com/userreviews/tape/reviewhtml/EXABYTE_Mammoth_M2_INTERNAL_M21.html

or do a Google search for "exabyte m2 sucks" (no kidding).

 

[shellac]

was reading your "journal of death" when I started getting bad flashbacks about Exabite "support" and felt my left eye start to twitch.
I'll tell you right now all you need is replacement drives to have it work for another 6 months. Then you'll go through the same thing ALL OVER AGAIN. Did anyone at Exabite mention to you how the "Smartclean" feature wasn't even working until firmware version 4? It's almost maddening to read about that feature on the back of every M2 tape case. I spoke to Charles too and he had me clean the drive 5 times also, then he recommended I do that every week before the full backups!!!! Helloooo, cleaning tapes are abrasive and do reduce the life of the drive when you use them that much.
Anyway, what you have to do is tell them you have critical backups that are not getting done and demand a new drive. They might seem like nice people, and maybe they are, but I tend to think they've seen this many, many times before you (like me and the other sysopt review people) and they're just trying to buy time. They'll try to push the VXA's on you too.
Also, my server was connected directly to the router via gigabit fiber and they still tried to give me the "backhitching" spiel(sp?). Were your backups working for a while before?