Insert Overwritable media ??

[bbos360]

I would appreciate very much any assistance on this.

I have a backup job with exec 8.6 which seems to run fine with no problems what so ever when the amount to backup is set to very low amounts of data. I can also keep overwriting the same disk if I so please as all the overwrite settings are set to yes.

When I try to run a large backup of all our drives (c,d,e being standard hard drives with just files on them) the percentage gets to 100% and a very large byte count is reported but the the disk ejects out with the samn error msg 'please insert overwritable media'?????

we were using 20Gb tapes and it worked fine until all of sudden this error msg occured so i spent a few hunred quid on 40gb tapes - same problem.

PLease help.

 

[SQLBill]

Are your tapes set to allow OVERWRITE? Or are they set to always APPEND and only OVERWRITE after a specific amount of time? Is this problem happening with every backup?

-SQLBill

 

[bbos360]

The setting was set to infinite - Append Only but i since corrected it this and set it to 1 hour. Small backup i.e a few directorys work fine. Last night I backup with no problem the c drive (byte count in BE= 12,xxx,xxx,xxx) however when i try backing up c, d and e the byte count gets to 27,xxx,xxx,xxx and ask 'please insert overwritable media.

Is BE asking for the backup to be spread over 2 disks? if so why doesn't a proper error msg appear! i.e insert second disk rather than insert overwritable medai

I am using a surestore Dat 40 with 40 GB tapes (the dat box sais 2:1 compression)

I am now running a backup with the compression type set to software (i have tried the other 2 options).

 

[bbos360]

Worked fine with compression set to software (byte count 26,xxx,xxx,xxx)- maybe dat drive itself is slightly faulty as it can't compress anymore?

 

[SQLBill]

Nope, I've been seeing lots of posts about BE and hardware compression not really working as expected. The consensus is to use software compression only. I think that Veritas is missing something from their manual/directions. I am beginning to believe that we should be using SOFTWARE compression when we are using Veritas' drivers and HARDWARE compression when we are using the tape drive manufacturer's drivers.

I agree about the error message wording, but it is telling you what to do...if it only said Insert a second tape, then someone might insert one that isn't overwriteable and complain about that. It's hard to create wording that someone won't find an issue with.

-SQLBill

 

[bbos360]

Thankyou for your assitance and information