PowerVault 136T slowdown...HELP!

[DarthThorium]

I'm getting grey hairs over this one =oP

Scenario: PowerEdge 6350 with an Adaptec 39160 driving a PV136 with 3 drives. The 136 is the only device on this card. Software is ArcServe 2000 on Win2k Server, both patched to the hilt with latest SPs. This particular combo is giving me only about 100 megs/minute.

On the *same* machine at the same time, but on an Adaptec 39440AUWD, our old PV130 is smoking at rates up to 500mb/min. With the same server, drivers, arcserve, the works.

I have tried a registry hack that Dell suggested: set DefaultBlockFactor to 7 hex (64k blocks.) No effect.

I have tried different settings on the SCSI board. No effect.

I have tried removing and reinstalling ArcServe. No effect.

I've even replaced the cable going from library to scsi card. No effect.

Any suggestions? Im starting to think either Dell makes a defective library in the 136, or there is somethign wrong in the SCSI chain. Alternatively, I could also say ArcServe bites. Which one is correct? How do I fix this?



Going Grey in Backup Hell,

The Dark Lord of the Vacuum Tubes

 

[DarthThorium]

Problem solved!

What I thought was the latest and greatest adaptec drivers for the 39160 turned out to be rather stale.

From Adaptec's README in the new bundle: "With non-disk device such as HP Ultrium *cough* Tape drive, the driver did not negotiate transfer rate, all subsequent IO transfers occurred as Async." (and I DID notice this on the board's POST.. didn't think much of it. Till today.)

results: on a local disk backup, ~600mb/m. On networked drives (gigabit) up to.. around 400~500, depending on the server load in question.

 

[Guest_imported]

I have the exact same problem.. I downloaded the latest drivers from Adaptec though... i'll go have another look.

 

[DarthThorium]

Check the drivers for your Ultra160 through Device Mangler. The most recent are 4.20. If it is 4.00, that was the problem driver.

The new ones are on the adaptec site as "FMS Service Pack 3" or somesuch. The package doesn't outright say "DRIVERS!"... so it took me a while to latch on to the fact I had stale drivers.

As I mentioned on my previous post, even the README in the FMS SP3 outright says that the older driver had a bad problem with Ultrium drives... and our 136's have..Ultriums =o)

 

[Guest_imported]

YES!!!!!!

I had the right driver, but had chosen the wrong controller. The version was 6.something, I put it back to 4.2.

Just finished a local job, and averaged 640MB/min.

LTO's rock.

Thanks for your help.