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Not switching tapes
- Thread starter c567591
- Start date
Make sure you have the latest tape engine patch applied -
for Arcserve 2000
for BAB
Rgds
SjrH - Data Security Storage & Availability Specialist
for Arcserve 2000
for BAB
Rgds
SjrH - Data Security Storage & Availability Specialist
- Thread starter
- #4
- Thread starter
- #6
WNDCHSR, I was in the same situation that you're in now.
Either your retention time for your backup media is too long, or you need to rotate in some blank media. This sounds obvious, but looks like you need to plan your backup scheme - How much total backup data? How many slots in the lib? How far back do you need to retrieve data? Rotation Scheme? Actual Data capacity per tape (70gig tape with compression/ I see about 40gig actual)
Also, it took me a while to understand the group and media pool relationship.
This is what I did.
Assign media to a group - usually for a physical location ex. BLDG1420 - Then create the job and assign the group to the job - and on the rotation schedule (still while creating the job) assign the media pool name (use a new name and a media pool will be created). Before scheduling the new job, go to options menu and under the backup media tab MAKE SURE THAT -
OVERWRITE SAME MEDIA NAME, or BLANK MEDIA FIRST, AND THEN ANY MEDIA.
is selected.
After creating the job, go to media pool manager and adjust the properties of the media pool name you used for your job. Just make sure that the retention times conform to your backup scheme.
After all of this, Arcserve will still buck and scream, dr. watson errors, servo errors, mounting problems ect. You just have to be more pig-headed than it is.
Hope this helps.
Almost forgot - make sure that all the latest patches have been installed for your version of Arcserve.
Either your retention time for your backup media is too long, or you need to rotate in some blank media. This sounds obvious, but looks like you need to plan your backup scheme - How much total backup data? How many slots in the lib? How far back do you need to retrieve data? Rotation Scheme? Actual Data capacity per tape (70gig tape with compression/ I see about 40gig actual)
Also, it took me a while to understand the group and media pool relationship.
This is what I did.
Assign media to a group - usually for a physical location ex. BLDG1420 - Then create the job and assign the group to the job - and on the rotation schedule (still while creating the job) assign the media pool name (use a new name and a media pool will be created). Before scheduling the new job, go to options menu and under the backup media tab MAKE SURE THAT -
OVERWRITE SAME MEDIA NAME, or BLANK MEDIA FIRST, AND THEN ANY MEDIA.
is selected.
After creating the job, go to media pool manager and adjust the properties of the media pool name you used for your job. Just make sure that the retention times conform to your backup scheme.
After all of this, Arcserve will still buck and scream, dr. watson errors, servo errors, mounting problems ect. You just have to be more pig-headed than it is.
Hope this helps.
Almost forgot - make sure that all the latest patches have been installed for your version of Arcserve.
- Thread starter
- #8
- Thread starter
- #9
CokeandSushi
MIS
As mentioned by SjHr make sure you are running the latest patches. I have found that my problems with the Compaq autoloader seem to be sorted as the latest tape engines are installed.
Make sure you follow the instructions and have SP4 installed!
Make sure you follow the instructions and have SP4 installed!
Greetings-
I too am trying to teach myself ArcServe. I've got a GFS rotation running great, doing daily incrementals and weekly bit-clears of a few of my servers.
The problem I have is completely seperate - similar to what "wndchsr" mentioned. What i'm looking to do is setup a one-time complete balls-to-the-wall archive of my 8 servers. I've got 4 tapes, which is WAY more than enough space to capture all the data (about 300gb worth). I'm using a Compaq StorageWorks SSL2020 19-slot tape unit.
I inventoried all the tapes, and picked the last 4 and formatted them into a group called "Archive" and set the retention period until 01/01/2010. Did not assign them to a media pool. Mounted the media after formatting.
Picked all the files I wanted, and set the job to run. It picked out the first tape, and started humming right along. 22hrs and ~70gb later, I get a popup message saying "Please mount blank media to continue the backup". Now, this is a 2-drive unit, and only one of the drives was occupied (with Archive_1). Archive_2, 3, 4 were sitting in the magazine doing nothing, completely blank - formatted the same exact way Archive_1 was... into the Archive device group.
With the message still up, I chose "mount media" from the device config, and all the tapes mounted fine. Click OK, still gave me message to "mount blank media". ended up having to cancel the job. 22hrs lost, and only a partial archive. Any thoughts??? I'm not exactly arcserve savvy, so any help is appreciated. thanks!!
-ben
ps... hopefully the solution to my problem will grant some insight into the solution to wndchsr's and others' problems as well.
I too am trying to teach myself ArcServe. I've got a GFS rotation running great, doing daily incrementals and weekly bit-clears of a few of my servers.
The problem I have is completely seperate - similar to what "wndchsr" mentioned. What i'm looking to do is setup a one-time complete balls-to-the-wall archive of my 8 servers. I've got 4 tapes, which is WAY more than enough space to capture all the data (about 300gb worth). I'm using a Compaq StorageWorks SSL2020 19-slot tape unit.
I inventoried all the tapes, and picked the last 4 and formatted them into a group called "Archive" and set the retention period until 01/01/2010. Did not assign them to a media pool. Mounted the media after formatting.
Picked all the files I wanted, and set the job to run. It picked out the first tape, and started humming right along. 22hrs and ~70gb later, I get a popup message saying "Please mount blank media to continue the backup". Now, this is a 2-drive unit, and only one of the drives was occupied (with Archive_1). Archive_2, 3, 4 were sitting in the magazine doing nothing, completely blank - formatted the same exact way Archive_1 was... into the Archive device group.
With the message still up, I chose "mount media" from the device config, and all the tapes mounted fine. Click OK, still gave me message to "mount blank media". ended up having to cancel the job. 22hrs lost, and only a partial archive. Any thoughts??? I'm not exactly arcserve savvy, so any help is appreciated. thanks!!
-ben
ps... hopefully the solution to my problem will grant some insight into the solution to wndchsr's and others' problems as well.
CokeandSushi
MIS
I am now also starting to get the same problem even after having installed all the patches.
This is my workaround to resolve it.
Find the last tape that has data on it. I did this by doing the quick math of how much each tape holds and counting the number of tapes. Do a restore of this tape. It should be empty if you have the fault.
Modify the job to now write to the blank tapes instead of the group ( * ).
This will see you fill the remainder of the tapes that are still blank.
This is my workaround to resolve it.
Find the last tape that has data on it. I did this by doing the quick math of how much each tape holds and counting the number of tapes. Do a restore of this tape. It should be empty if you have the fault.
Modify the job to now write to the blank tapes instead of the group ( * ).
This will see you fill the remainder of the tapes that are still blank.
ARCserve automatically swaps tapes when the tape is full. This is done via a SCSI command back from the tape drive and would look something like this:
SENSE ABSL:???? End Of Media Detected 40
EX SENSE ABSL:???? End-Of-Partition/Medium Detected 00, 02
At this point ARCserve will eject the tape and load the next available tape (either some thing in the Media Pool Scratch Set) or a Blank media.
I would suggest that you get a couple of tapes for the back. Perform and Erase (Quick Erase Plus) and leave them blank. Do not format the media or assign them to a media pool. The backup Job should run without issues after that.
Media Pools take a bit of getting used to. There are 2 rules to be satisfied for a tape to move from the "Save Set" to the "Scratch Set"
Retention Time (How many days it keeps the tape in the Save Set" and also "Min # of Tapes".. The Min # of Tapes actually isn't a physical number but rather backup sets. IE Monday may use 3 tapes but it is clasified as 1 tape.
My suggestion is to set the Min # of tapes to 0 and simply use the amount of days you want to retain the media for.
SENSE ABSL:???? End Of Media Detected 40
EX SENSE ABSL:???? End-Of-Partition/Medium Detected 00, 02
At this point ARCserve will eject the tape and load the next available tape (either some thing in the Media Pool Scratch Set) or a Blank media.
I would suggest that you get a couple of tapes for the back. Perform and Erase (Quick Erase Plus) and leave them blank. Do not format the media or assign them to a media pool. The backup Job should run without issues after that.
Media Pools take a bit of getting used to. There are 2 rules to be satisfied for a tape to move from the "Save Set" to the "Scratch Set"
Retention Time (How many days it keeps the tape in the Save Set" and also "Min # of Tapes".. The Min # of Tapes actually isn't a physical number but rather backup sets. IE Monday may use 3 tapes but it is clasified as 1 tape.
My suggestion is to set the Min # of tapes to 0 and simply use the amount of days you want to retain the media for.
I have Arcserve 2000 and have worked with it but never really learn much about the configuration, just what was needed to get a backup. Most of the time I don't have trouble in fact I've had no trouble for almost a year, but in the past 2 weeks it's decided that the scratch set will clear and not add the tapes the save set. Long story short I have not tapes in the save set to backup to. So I added 5 tapes to the save set and the backup was once again good for 5 days. So I started looking at whats going on. I have my retention time set to "0" and # of media in the save set, set to "0" also. My thought in this was that it would retention on every backup and never put any media in the save set. I have 5 tapes I use them Mon-Fri and each tape in overwritten one work week from it's day if that makes sense. Monday overwrites itself every Monday, so I have basiclly 4 days of backup unless teh 5th tape has not been written to yet.
Any help on this will be great, I'm going to continue to search for an answer and read up on the proper time for to retention and media for what I'm, try to acheive.
thanks
Any help on this will be great, I'm going to continue to search for an answer and read up on the proper time for to retention and media for what I'm, try to acheive.
thanks
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