Hardware Compression

[mlincoln9496]

I am current using a two week rotation and have tried to(hardware) compress the data. What is the best way to compress data; hardware or software? I have used hardware, in the device manager, but it does not carry forward to the actual backup. The data back;s up uncompressed, which takes approx 14 hours to complete.

Any suggestions?

 

[DebiJo]

I have always heard that hardware compression is the best. Some tape drives have a dip switch that must be set for hardware compression to work. Others don't have hardware compression. Some's hardware compression does not work very well. Arcserve will ignore the software compression option, if the drive is hardware compression enabled. You can look at the Arcserve certified device list link to see what is supported.

http://support.ca.com/techbases/as2000/arc2000.html

Debi

 

[Cyklops]

When backing up over the network by using client agents you might improve backup speeds because the client agent then sends the data compressed over the network, while hardware compression is always accomplished by the tape drive.
The best way to find out is to perform a representative testbackup with hardware compression enabled and one with software compression enabled. Then you can see which of the two is best for your environment.

regards

 

[tmlincoln]

When I enable the compression before the backup, it still doesn't read it. It formats the tape.

 

[Cyklops]

What do you mean with this ?? enabling/disabling hardware/software compression has nothing to do with formatting the tape before backing up.
please explain

regards

 

[tmlincoln]

Because the backups have been failing, I tried to erase the tapes for each day then enable compression. For example, today I will format our 'Wedneday I' tape and enable the compression. I have already set up a full backup rotation for 6pm each night. When 6pm hits, the tape is engaged by Arcserve and is formated. Once it is formatted, from what I understand, it looses its compression.